


AU Yeah August - Prowl and Jazz

by dragonofdispair



Series: Unrelated Prompt Responses [66]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Drabble Collection, Gen, M/M, Read the notes for each chapter if you're worried, au yeah august
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-20 03:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 26,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15525222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: Thirty-one different Transformers AUs. One for each day in August.





	1. Soulmate AU

**Author's Note:**

> [Rizobact](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizobact/pseuds/Rizobact) (who spends a lot more time on Tumblr than I do) found this thing -- an AU prompt calendar -- and suggested we do it. After changing just a few of the prompts we felt didn't apply to Transformers, we settled on the same set of prompts.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl doesn’t have a soulmate; Jazz doesn’t need one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of angsty.

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The story went that Primus forged mechs in pairs, that true happiness meant finding your other half. They weren’t really _meant_ to, per see. Primus did not promise that once born two sparks were meant to find each other again, but taking pity on His creations, he gave each of them a clue: the first words they would say to each other, inscribed somewhere on his plating.

That meant, Prowl thought savagely, there were millions of mechs who had some variant of “hello” written somewhere on their armor. How useful.

Prowl didn’t even have “hi” etched anywhere on his plating. Nowhere. He had looked. Everywhere. Prowl was unlovable. That was the only conclusion that could be drawn from his white plating, utterly devoid of glyphs save those he painted there in the course of his duties. _Serve and Protect._ He, he decided, didn’t need love for that.

“Hey Prowl. You wanna go out after work?”

Jazz was confusing in that, since the two of them had been partnered together, he had been friendly, even solicitous, toward Prowl.

It hurt.

“I’m busy,” Prowl brushed off Jazz’s invitation. He didn’t know why the other officer kept _trying._ Surely there was no point after the initial exchange of greetings. Upon learning that their cordial hellos _couldn’t_ be a matched pair of spark-half marks, Jazz should have given up. Everyone gave up after that, even when not faced with the one spark that didn’t have a second half somewhere out there.

Jazz had a second half. His mark was a messy scrawl of basic glyphs, binary level machine code that indicated his other half was an intellectual, a programmer, of some sort. According to Jazz, it read _I love you._ Prowl tried not to be jealous of that. Jazz’s other half wouldn’t even need to exchange basic greetings before realizing he loved him, while Prowl had nothing. But Jazz was very likable. Anyone would love him at first sight. Prowl could have, but Prowl couldn’t love anyone.

“With what? Need help?” Far from making Jazz go away, Prowl’s attempt to brush him off made him come closer. “I thought we had all our cases done for the night.”

They did but, “I wanted to reexamine the murder weapon used during that break in two cycles ago.” Forensics would be open. Officers were coming and going all joors.

“Mech who did the analysis for us won’t be available until the morning,” Jazz said shrewdly. Of course that wouldn’t stop Prowl from going in and looking at the weapon anyway, but he couldn’t take it out of the evidence bag, couldn’t ask to look at details up close. “If you don’t want to get fuel with me, just say so. You don’t need to make up excuses, I promise.”

It wasn’t the fuel, specifically, even if Jazz was too friendly, too caring, while they talked. It hurt, but what made Prowl’s spark bleed was, “I don’t appreciate being propositioned afterwards.”

“Okay,” Jazz gave in easily. “I won’t do that anymore. Just energon.”

Prowl hesitated, but the pain of something missing and the desire to feel a shadow of what he knew he’d never have was overwhelming. “Just energon.”

“Great!”

Having decided he was going out with Jazz instead of continuing to work, Prowl started closing folders and putting them away in the locked drawer next to their shared desk. Jazz helped by collecting up the styluses and taking the sludge-filled cups of oil that had sustained them through the last few joors over to the sink to be cleaned. While he rinsed them, Prowl used a disposable cleaning cloth to wipe the dust from the files from his hands and the dirt from the road and crimes scene earlier from his feet. He hadn’t earlier because he was busy, but the establishment Jazz would take them to wouldn’t appreciate traces of someone’s innermost energon and internal workings being tracked on their floor.

“Ready to go?” Jazz, as always, was immaculate.

“Yes.” Feeling resigned, Prowl stood.

They maneuvered passed the crowded, busy entrance to the police station, filled with criminals in the process of being processed, petitioners and witnesses waiting to talk to an officer, and more harassed and busy looking city employees than the room’s occupancy technically allowed.

“Gotta question for you,” Jazz said thoughtfully as they stepped out into the cool and quiet night air. “You don’t like it, I won’t do it, but I’m kind of wondering what you don’t like about my offering to take you home for the night. You one of those ‘only with your other half’ types?”

“No,” Prowl answered dutifully. He knew mechs interfaced with each other for a variety of reasons. There was always the understanding that such liaisons were temporary. But Prowl didn’t want temporary, didn’t want pity. If Jazz were pursuing someone _other_ than him… “I just don’t understand why you’re pursuing me,” blank, unlovable, “when you have that,” he gestured to Jazz’s mark, visible on his thigh, “to look for.” Unconditional love, immediate love.

Jazz looked down at the machine-code etched on his leg in surprise. “I’m not still looking,” he said, just a little stunned. “Frag, I keep forgetting how significant people think these things are…”

“They are significant.” If Jazz already had his other half waiting for him, why…

“Ricochet’s my twin,” Jazz answered. “We’re split spark. We stumbled off the assembly line already clinging to each other. We said our words to each other before we had a language to say them in… but he’s not my mate. I’m still looking for him.”

“But you don’t have another mark…” Prowl was stunned. He just stood there trying to reorder his world. Jazz already had his other half, but he was still looking for…

Jazz shrugged. “Just means I’m not limited to one destined person,” he said, offhand, like the words were tearing down Prowl’s world to let in hope. “Gotta shop around, actually figure out if I like a person before committing to being mates with him.”

“And me? Why me?” Because he also didn’t have a destiny? Because Jazz wouldn’t be waiting and dreading the day Prowl heard his words and left him?

“Why not you? I like you, we work well together…” Jazz shrugged. “I just thought the next step was finding out if we liked the same things in the berth.”

“Oh.”

“Come one Prowl.” Jazz patted Prowl’s arm. “Let’s go get energon.”

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	2. College AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> University isn't easy for Jazz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Riz posted her first chapter of this, she also posted a copy of the calendar we we're using. Go check it out, if you want: https://rizobact.tumblr.com/post/176529648626/in-the-month-of-august
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: mentions of both prostitution like behavior, illegal drugs, and rape.

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It was the soft rhythmic tapping that brought Jazz out of recharge. He knew immediately he wasn’t in his own room. His apartment was on the darker, smoggier side of the river. He had to get up early to commute to the university and the air always smelled like smoke and ash and the burning-metal scent of the forges at work. It wasn’t pretty, but it was cheap, and a foreigner -- a Polyhexian at that -- trying to earn his degree in Praxus had to take cheap over pretty every single time. Classes were expensive.

It’d be worth it when he went back. Having just one Praxus-educated member would improve the job prospects for his entire cohort...

He wracked his memory for why he might be in a berth that felt soft and clean and smelled… well faintly like garbage. Which may have fit in in his own apartment, wafting in from outside with the soot and the smoke, but was additionally odd when taken with how clean everything felt.

He turned on his optic band. This was definitely not his berth.

In keeping with the faint scent of soap and the touch of _clean_ against his plating, the cooling blanket draped over him was a soft, new, white, not his own patched dark grey blanket. The ceiling was clean, also white, and bright, unfiltered sunlight streamed in through the window.

Jazz sat up, wondering where he was and looking for a clue. The room had been divided down the middle with a strip of yellow hazard tape. One side -- the side he was on -- was perfectly neat, while starting exactly on the line the other was piled high with mess, including many used take out containers. That was the garbage scent was coming from. This was obviously a dorm room, belonging to two people who had very different ideas of appropriate living space. Which meant…

He turned his gaze onto the small desk occupied by the bright, white Praxan. The clicking was the mech typing away on his terminal. Doing homework maybe?

This wasn’t actually Jazz’s first time waking up in someone else’s berth. Once, the rent check his cohort was sending him had arrived two days late and the landlord had kicked Jazz out until it arrived. Jazz had let a grabby Praxan at a party take him home so he could keep going to classes instead of living on the streets. Parties, he’d found, were a great way to get some extra energon, as long as he was willing to act like the slut Praxans thought Polyhexians universally were. Clang a few mechs in dark corners in exchange for all the free food he could stuff in his subspace? Sure.

But all of those -- sordid as they had been -- had been his _choice._ He didn’t remember going home with someone last night.

Should he demand answers? Whatever had happened last night hadn’t been something he’d agreed to. Or should he slink out and never mention it again?

The mech’s doors twitched and he stopped typing. Jazz pulled the blanket up over him, trying to hide his main thoracic port from view, even though it wasn’t currently visible through his armor. He didn’t like how the mech’s piercing blue gaze took in every inch of him anyway.

Jazz nervously did the same. The mech’s pristine, high gloss finish, a rich, multilayered white with dark red accents hinted the mech must be high class. Frag. He should have just slunk out. No accusation from him against this mech would stick, and now that he’d been noticed he’d have to _pretend_ whatever-it-was had been consensual instead of just avoiding him for the rest of ever. He braced himself for -- he wasn’t sure what. A threat maybe. Or dirty talk he’d have to take as a compliment.

“Would you like some energon?” the mech asked, voice surprisingly gentle and at odds with his gaze.

Caught off guard, Jazz answered, “Sure,” before his processor caught up with himself.

The mech slid out of his chair to kneel next to a small storage unit. Jazz expected him to pour the energon into one of the pristine cups stacked on top of the unit, but the mech surprised him by offering him the bottle still sealed, with a multi tool so he could open it. Which, honestly, made Jazz want to subspace it and hold off on drinking it until he was really hungry, but he didn’t dare. He popped the lid off and held the multitool out to his host to return to its place.

The mech settled back into his chair, now facing the berth. “My name is Prowl.” he offered.

“Jazz.”

"The buildings' RAs broke up the party last night due to a reported incidence of illegal intoxicants being passed around,” Prowl reported briskly. “Unfortunately, we did not manage to detain anyone who could be proven responsible for the presence of the intoxicants. In addition to you, there were six others who had been given high enough doses to pass out. The other RAs recognized residents of their buildings, but did not know you. Since you could not be simply left there, we brought you here to sleep it off.” The mech tilted his doors in what Jazz had learned was meant to be a reassuring angle. “Is there anyone in specific who was present you wish to press charges against?”

Jazz remembered going to the party. He even remembered fragging the burly Praxan in charge of checking invitations. He filled his subspace with as much fuel as he could sneak, but after that… it started getting fuzzy. Slag.

“No one I can point out,” Jazz admitted. “It’s still Primsday, right?” Primsday -- Prima’s Day -- was the end of the decacyle and there were no classes. Jazz couldn’t afford to miss any classes.

“Yes.” Prowl’s lips pressed together, displeased. “I would suggest avoiding such parties in the future.”

“Yeah…” Jazz shook his head. “Really wish I could afford that.”

Red chevron points tilted curiously.

“Parties’re free fuel,” he explained, not really sure why he was explaining the depth of his destitution to this Praxan. “I don’t really have the money after tuition and rent to buy a ton of that.”

Jazz squirmed under Prowl’s glare. Yeah this was why he didn’t really bother explaining this to--

“Here,” the mech produced a small chip, stamped with the school’s logo. “This will get you two meals a cycle at the school cafeteria, for the rest of the semester. The chips are untracked, so I will simply claim I lost mine and buy a new one. Hopefully that will help you save enough to recharge this one yourself at the beginning of next semester.”

Jazz automatically took the chip when it was pressed into his hand. “I couldn’t--”

Prowl turned back to his terminal. “I will feel better knowing you are able to keep yourself safe.” The _tap, tap, tappity_ of the keyboard resumed. “You may stay there until nightfall, or leave whenever you wish, as long as you are quiet. I need to study.”

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	3. Vampire (/Sparkeater) AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of my dark [dark fantasy/undead oneshot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27412239) from my [ProwlxJazz Community 10th Anniversary Fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27066306) from last year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/warnings: dark, fantasy, undead, morally ambiguous Prowl…
> 
> For [Insecuriousity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insecuriosity) who was very curious.

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It wasn’t hunger that woke Jazz; it was _satiation._ The electric taste of life settled into his tank and pleasure suffused his frame, driving back the thoughtless craving to feed.

“Good mech,” a voice whispered from behind him, a hand settled on his neck. Claws scritched an itchy place on his armor. He didn’t feel the mech’s EM field, didn’t taste the mech’s life on his tongue, but he felt a connection. A thread of power that made something deep inside of Jazz, deeper than even the hunger, need to obey. If this mech was pleased, then everything was fine.

Optics blinked on and only then did the horror of what he’d just done hit the newborn sparkeater. “No.” He backed away from the rent open corpse, screeching when tentacles dragged it alone with him. Jazz screeched and the tentacles writhed, as though they had a mind of their own, tearing the corpse further into shreds of metal, showering him with gore, which only made Jazz panic _more--_

“Stop.”

It didn’t matter that Jazz could barely hear the voice through his own struggles, it didn’t matter than he was near mindless with his own fear and horror, it didn’t even matter if Jazz wanted to obey or not… the magic that had created him brought him to a standstill unthinkingly, the command reaching into the well of dark magic that was his now his core and forcing obedience.

Prowl, the necromancer, the _lich,_ trailed his fingers over Jazz’s back and down one of his tentacles. Jazz tried to flinch from the sensation, alien and horror inducing but, oh, so gentle, but the command, the very magic that now made Jazz what he was, had not released him.

Gently, Prowl disentangled the dangerous hooks at the end of each of Jazz’s tentacles from the lifeless corpse. It fell to the ground, and despite himself, Jazz felt a burst of relief to see that it was a mechanimal, a cy-buck, and not a person. That, Jazz knew from his studies at the temple of Mortilus, meant he would tire quicker and hunger faster. He would crave the spark of living mechs, and the only thing that could stop him from hunting sentient prey was the monster who now held his leash.

It would, said a cold, calculating part of him that had been raised to slay the undead at all costs, attract the attention of any nearby Paladins of Primus or Inquisitors of Mortilus to come and kill him. But how many lives would he take before that happened? Could he be forgiven for that, even in the process of seeking his own true-death?

“You may move now,” the necromancer released him, stepping away, fearlessly turning his back. Experimentally Jazz tried to move his tentacles; the blades at the end would rip through even a lich’s undead flesh. Worth it…? “Don’t bother,” Prowl answered with a dismissive flick of his doorwings. “You know as well as I do that I cannot be killed unless my phylactery is destroyed before Unicron reforms my body. All you would be doing is _temporarily_ releasing yourself from my command.”

“Could kill myself before you came back to take me again,” Jazz murmured, contemplating that. He could feel the chains of the necromancer’s control already binding him: stay in the lair, don’t harm yourself or my minions, don’t make any attempts to contact anyone outside the lair… a surprisingly light touch on his will.

The lich sighed. “I had hoped you would not be so stupid. Fine. You may not kill _anything_ without my explicit command.”

The command settled into the magic at Jazz’s core, driving all thoughts of murder-suicide from his mind. Frag, Prowl was powerful. He tried to think about escaping the monster’s control long enough to turn his blades on himself… and the thought scattered, smashed by the necromancer’s magic before it even formed.

Prowl ignored Jazz’s growl of frustration. “Come,” and command though it was, it was not backed up by magic; this one Jazz could disobey. “Pick out a lair. Or,” he turned back, narrowing his sickly glowing optics at Jazz when he refused to move, “stay, I suppose.”

“Pissing you off?” Jazz heckled, more than aware that if he pushed too many buttons, the necromancer would simply subsume Jazz’s will entirely. Frankly, Jazz wasn’t sure which was worse: to be a monster, an undead abomination, one of the very enemies of life itself he had sworn to destroy wherever he found them and aware of every klik as they ticked toward eternity, or to be wiped clean and simply become an extension of Prowl’s will. He could do terrible things like that, unaware… but also without responsibility for his own actions.

“No,” Prowl answered with patience. “Quite frankly, now that you cannot your Order of my existence -- in life, death, or unlife -- I don’t care what you do. Sulk for eternity if you desire.”

“Maybe I will!” Jazz called at the monster’s retreating doors; Prowl didn’t bother answering that time and just continued down the corridor until he had disappeared into the dark.

A terrorcon -- the lowest form of undead, mindless, predatory, easy to create and easy to control -- shambled in. Jazz glared at it. He couldn’t even contemplate killing it, but he could hate its very existence. Immune to something so ineffectual as mere hate, the terrorcon continued its shamble to the cy-buck corpse and--

“Ew!” Jazz scrambled away from the thing’s feeding. “At least take that outside!”

To his surprise, the terrorcon stopped, hooked its claws into the corpse and dragged it away, trailing gore.

Watching it go, Jazz narrowed his optics. So just because he couldn’t act against Prowl’s commands didn’t mean he was powerless. He was a higher undead, something Prowl’s minions would obey -- as long as he didn’t contradict their own commands. He couldn’t think about escape, or killing, or contacting his Order… but he could… test… his new circumstances. See how much, if any, of his pre-transformation abilities survived.

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	4. Enemy AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl has a problem...

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Prowl looked at the storeroom, then back down to the inventory sheet. The readout on the energon tanks all were quite different than they should have been. Lower. Small discrepancies were to be expected, of course, but this was too large to be an accidental measuring error.

Embezzling, of course, was the most likely scenario. Prowl’s processor churned away at the problem as he opened and read through the logs. Energon purchased, delivered, distributed and decided that the most likely scenario was that the quartermaster or one of his helpers was the one skimming. But, and this was the sticking point in Prowl’s processor, the quartermaster had also been the one to report the discrepancy. Were he -- or the assistant who tracked the tank’s level each day -- the one responsible, Prowl would have expected him to fudge the paperwork, not report it. There had, after all, been no suspicions of theft before that, so no need to file a false report to throw off suspicion.

Which, logically, pointed away from that conclusion and toward another: outright theft by party or parties unknown.

Prowl frowned. He did not like that possibility. An outright theft implied the existence of a thief, which meant someone had snuck past at least one layer of security -- if the thief was someone on this base. If he had come from _outside_ the base… well then, Prowl and Red Alert had quite a bit of work revamping the Autobots’ security protocols.

There was nothing for it. Denying the existence of a security breach would be nothing but trouble in the long run.

Subspacing the datapad with the logs, Prowl moved into the room. If this had been a true theft, there would be something of the thief left behind. Paint transfers, odd scuffs… It was annoying that he did not know when exactly the theft or thefts had taken place. That would have made investigating so much easier. But if at all possible, closing up any holes in the base’s security could not wait for a stake out to catch the thief in the act.

He did note an odd scuff on one of the tank’s spigots, but it was hardly enough to lead Prowl to the thief. A streak of dark paint was not a clear clue leading to the thief’s identity.

An odd draft, accompanied by an equally odd scent, however, was more promising.

Prowl was not particularly good at climbing, so he needed a step stool to climb up and examine the vent grate. From there it took only a cursory examination to determine it had been tampered with. The alarms had been disabled and three of the screws were missing. It had been wedged closed on the reverse side, so as to appear intact.

Carefully Prowl eased it open, noting as he did so that it rotated on the remaining screw silently. He caught the cup full of debris that had been leaned against the grate before it could spill. A crude alarm system, indicating the thief was potentially nearby. Interesting.

He pondered for a moment what he should do. If could not reset the trap from this side of the grate, and if the thief came to see it gone while Prowl was fetching reinforcements, he would leave and all chance to catch him would disappear along with the knowledge of how to so skillfully infiltrate the base. On the other hand, Prowl was not a skilled climber, and Praxan frames were not built for tight spaces.

The need to catch the thief, if not himself, now, then at some later date was paramount, overriding any discomfort Prowl felt. He needed to, at the very least, crawl into the ventilation shaft and reset the crude alarm trap. Pinging Red Alert to inform him what he was doing -- even if the thief could circumvent the traps and alarms the security director had in the vents, Prowl could not -- Prowl folded his doors against his back and shimmied into the dark.

Resetting the trap proved quite tricky, but Prowl managed. Now trapped in the vents with the thief, Prowl continued to inch forward on his belly, looking for additional signs.

Trails in the dust would have been nice, but cleaning drones kept the vents spotless for health reasons. Fortunately, here where such signs weren’t as noticable, the thief had not been as careful to avoid paint transfers and scuffs. They were by no means frequent, but there was enough that Prowl managed to follow a trail leading deeper into the base, toward the generators.

That worried him. If there was some way of accessing the generators from the vents, that could spell trouble for the entire base. A careless thief, or a deliberate saboteur, could hit the wrong button and bring down eighty percent of the defense grid, leaving the base open to a Decepticon surprise attack.

As such, Prowl was slightly relieved when the faint trail he was following veered off before reaching the generators proper. Instead he found a hole that had been cut in the side of the vent to access a crawlspace above the generators. A nice warm hidey-hole…

… for a squatter, Prowl concluded. The space was barely the size of a cleaning supply closet and was almost entirely filled with scraps. Blankets, the shredded remains of documents that had been destroyed, intercepted before they could be incinerated, torn up packing crates, and other bits and bobs that could potentially cushion a desperate frame from the hard floor and hold in additional heat. Prowl saw the stolen energon -- at least some of it -- stacked neatly in disposable cups obviously taken from the garbage. He picked up the single datapad and turned it on. Instead of being connected to the bases systems, this one was filled with books and games. Likely swiped from a table or personal quarters when no one was looking. If he searched his memory, he could barely remember Bluestreak filing a stolen property report several quartexes ago…

Suddenly less sure what the correct course of action was, Prowl retreated from the thief’s den. He did not believe this was a saboteur. He was circumventing security, true, but if he wasn’t a Decepticon it would be easier to apprehend him by catching him in the act rather than trying to drag an obviously skilled an agile climber out of his nest here and now.

Mind made up, Prowl pinged Red Alert his findings, his decided upon course of action, and requested directions to the nearest exit point so he would not disturb the trap set on the grate in inventory.

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	5. Laundromat AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So why do robots need a laundromat?

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This looked like the place. It also looked… lonely. Jazz didn’t usually go for quiet, peaceful or contemplative. Pretty boring if you asked him. He didn’t have much of a choice though. This was the cheapest all-night laundromat in his area and his schedule didn’t exactly allow for him to go at a better (read: more interesting) time or on a better cycle. He had work. And then he had practice, performances, busking, social engagements… etc. Which left him doing his chores in the lonely late joors of Espisday. 

Nothing for it. The sooner he got started, the sooner he would get done. 

To his surprise, there were several washers running when he entered, filling the room with noise. At the same time, everything sounded oddly hushed. He dragged his carth of blankets, rugs and other woven mesh items over to an unoccupied row machines and started sorting into them. Steelsilk separated from the mylar separated from the vinyl-and-lead, of which there was enough to take up two machines because they were so heavy, separated from the soft polyamides microfiber blankets and cleaning rags. Jazz only had one goldsilk item, and it got a washer all to itself.

Adding the different solvents each fabric type required, Jazz closed up the machines and set them to run. Now came the really boring part. Good thing he’d brought some of the datawork from the business side of being a freelance performer.

Jazz didn’t like being alone, so he automatically sought out the laundromat’s other occupant to sit near, though he was careful not to intrude on the mech’s space. He looked absorbed in his bookfile so Jazz pulled out a portable music player so he wouldn’t bother him.

The rhythmic background noise of the washers was surprisingly soothing, but Jazz wanted some tunes.

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“Taxes?” 

Surprised more by the incongruous sound than the question, Jazz looked up, startled. He blinked, not sure what to make of the black and white Praxan standing there with an expectant tilt to his doors. “Huh?”

“I asked if those were your tax returns,” the mech repeated. “It’s that time of the vorn, and you seem to have more work than normal.”

It was first time his laundromat companion had spoken to him. They’d been coming here, at the same time, same cycle, each week to do their respective laundry for almost a vorn, where the sat not-together in what had become a comfortable silence. Jazz had learned to value the break in his busy schedule to catch up on his datawork. 

And for some reason he was having trouble wrapping his processor the concept of actually speaking to his companion. “Huh?” Abruptly realizing how rude he was being, he shook himself. This was happening, he could adjust. “Yeah. Don’t really have a ton of time the rest of the decacycle. And I’ve got a couple of licenses I need to reapply for. What about you?” he asked, realizing the mech was doing his own datawork, instead of reading.

“Just some things that need to be signed off on before they’re filed. They can wait.” The mech had stacked his datapads neatly on the chair where he usually sat. “Are you having trouble? I’m not certified as an accountant, but I usually don’t find the tax forms too complicated.”

“Any idea how you’re supposed to declare earnings from tips?”

Taking that as permission to come closer, the mech took a seat, right next to Jazz’s pile of datapads. He held out his hand and Jazz handed the ‘pad he was cursing at over. “Usually tips are calculated as four percent of the salary for the associated job… Ah. I see the problem.” He gave a warm chuckle, reading the tax forms for Jazz’s busking, which was all tips, no salary, and why Jazz had been having trouble. He needed to prove he’d filed the forms and sent in the correct amount of money before he could renew his license, but he had no idea how much money was “correct”.

“Can you help me sort it out?”

The mech didn’t answer right away, reading through the entire spreadsheet. “I believe so.”

“Great! I’m Jazz, don’t think we’ve ever introduced ourselves.”

“Prowl. Pleased to meet you.” The Praxan quirked a smile; the irony of meeting someone for the first time after seeing them every decacycle for a vorn did not escape Jazz either. “This may take a while.”

“Ain’t got anywhere else to be,” Jazz drawled.

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	6. Hogwarts AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Giant Alien Robots attempt to attend a school for human magic. It goes... about as well as expected.

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“Put me down! Brute! Fiend! _Mindless golem!”_

“I think that was supposed to be an insult, Prowler,” Jazz drawled, leaning on Prowl to poke the screaming hat with his finger. He’d learned the (apparently fundamental but totally not obvious) lesson about not poking things randomly with convenient pokey tool the locals called a wand. _That_ incident had involved some dudes trying to arrest them for use of underage magic, but given that the age of majority was defined as seventeen years old and Jazz’s actual age was closer to seventeen million years old, and, oh yeah, Jazz didn’t really _fit_ in their prisons in his “starmetal” forged armor of unshrinkableness, he’d managed to get out of that one scot free.

“Agreed.” Prowl pulled the hat out of Jazz’s reach, which given that that meant closer to the pointy chevron of hat-shredding that was the only possible way he was fitting that thing on any part of his head, the hat wasn’t actually thrilled about its change in relative spatial position. _He’d_ had no accidents with the splinter of wood that one wizard had insisted had chosen him or some slag like that. Jazz didn’t need a strand of unicorn hair and some wisteria wood to tell him Prowl was studious and analytical to a fault. He’d bought the entire run of textbooks for the school plus some, read them, sent Jazz the relevant points in a handy digital format, and was legitimately questioning the need for either of them to attend this “school” at all.

But they were going anyway. Partially because the entire “Wizarding World” was having a collective conniption fit over literal aliens getting past their “must have X magic to ride” sign and insisted they needed to be “trained properly”, but mostly because Optimus had given them his best turbopuppy look while he shooed them out the door of the _Ark_ and told them to behave. (Because “secrecy” didn’t exist when you were talking about a couple of military officers and their combination commanding officer, best friend, king, and pope. Just a fact guys, get used to it.)

So. School.

Prowl looked from the fountain of invectives disguised as an article of clothing to the human who’d handed it to him. “What is the point of this exercise?”

The severe woman frowned at them -- which didn’t affect Prowl at all -- “The students are divided into four Houses that determine which dormitory you will sleep in.” Jazz snorted; anyone who thought he and Prowl were sleeping in that castle was delusional. They’d be parking on the lawn with canvas pavilion and a solar power converter to recharge. “As well as which table you eat at,” both of them snorted at that, “your class schedule, and teams for recreational activities.”

Prowl and Jazz exchanged a look. “In other words, quite pointless for us, given that we will be unable to do any of that with the other students.”

“I don’t know, Prowl,” Jazz said, just to be contrary. “It could be fun. Besides, cultural sensitivity! OP,” the woman frowned at the blatant reminder that they’d outright refused to keep magic a secret, ”will make his disappointed face.” It was blatantly manipulative. Prowl _knew_ Jazz was being manipulative. That didn’t mean it wasn’t working.

“No! I refuse to do this! You can’t make me! Put me down!”

Prowl held out the hat like it’d offended him -- which, honestly it had -- and sighed. “And this thing is supposed to sort us by ‘personality’ type? Which traits is it looking for?”

“Bravery, loyalty, intelligence, and ambition.”

Jazz stared at the human for a moment, trying to process that. Then he shrugged. “Okay, yeah. I agree with you Prowl, this is pretty useless.” Beside him, Prowl practically glowed with smug vindication.

The human frowned though. “They are extremely important indicators potential.”

“But they aren’t mutually exclusive character traits, and typecasting someone as possessing one but not all of them, creates dangerously unstable individuals, detrimental to the smooth running of an army.” The Autobots had enough of those, without adding their second and third in command to the mix. Even the twins were brave, intelligent AND loyal. Ambitious was a judgement call.

“This is a school, not an army.”

“Lady,” Jazz leaned in close. “All of us started as civilians, and if there’s one thing we learned in the process, it’s that you never know when you’ll have to _be_ an army.”

“Further, after reading through the relevant sections of various Wizarding,” even though he had his own wand and everything, Prowl still couldn’t say the word without a note of disbelief in his voice, “history books, I have to conclude that your explanation is overly simplistic.”

“Look.” The woman got a pinched, harassed look on her face. “In order to attend classes, you need to be in a House.”

“You’re the ones who insist we need to attend classes,” Jazz pointed out. “We could take our books and our wands and… go play on the moon or something. For a sweet tactical advantage like Primus-damned _magic,_ OP’ll authorize some time for us to go play, right Prowl?”

“Yes.” Primus, Jazz loved Prowl’s utter, unshakable confidence sometimes.

The woman looked outright panicked at the prospect. “Absolutely not! Just put the Hat on and let it pick something for you.”

“I wouldn’t Sort those two if they were the last students in existence!”

The woman looked flummoxed while Jazz fell over laughing. Prowl, who was being used by Jazz to hold himself in a nominally upright position, just gave his fellow Autobot an exasperated glare. Jazz didn’t care. This whole thing was just getting better by the minute!

Silently Prowl offered the incensed hat to the woman with a shrug of his doors.

The woman glared at the thing for a moment as it fell silent, imitating a mere hat once again. She was obviously Not Happy, either with it or them. Jazz couldn’t bring it in himself to feel bad about that. This was hilarious, and Jazz wasn’t exactly known for his deep and abiding respect for authority. Authority _figures,_ sure, some of them, but not authority itself.

Prowl on the other hand watched her silently. He looked contrite, but Jazz could feel his EM field ticking away, calculating. That wasn’t unusual. Jazz kind of wished he knew what he was calculating, but trusted that whatever it was, it would probably make every one of the officious blowhards they’d had to deal with so far blow their freaking minds.

The woman just looked peeved. “We need you in a House for class assignments--”

“Which would all have to be taught outside to accommodate our sizes,” Prowl cut in.

“--and for just plane record keeping!” the woman almost yelled. “We’re not set up to grade House-less students.”

“Not our fault.”

“Just _pick_ one!”

Prowl looked at Jazz. Jazz looked at Prowl. They both shrugged.

“Slytherine,” Prowl decided for both of them.

The woman gaped. “But-- sneaky!”

“Oh definitely,” Jazz answered, still giggling. They were different kind of sneaks, but sneaky was a major component of their jobs. As long as Prowl admitted, “I am the best sneak thief that ever did sneak.”

“He is,” Prowl confirmed, “surprisingly stealthy. Spies usually are.”

“Sp--!” The woman clearly didn’t believe it, her little opti--eyes were so wide. “Manipulative,” she demanded finding her voice.”

“And proud of it!” Jazz crowed. Whether it was coaxing Decepticons to spill their info -- with or without torture -- or poking Bluestreak until he cheered up, Jazz was definitely one manipulative bot.

“Manipulative is part of my job,” Prowl said mildly, which understated it; as tactician, propaganda crafter, and Spec Ops oversight, Prowl put Jazz to shame on the manipulative scale. “It’s not a bad thing, as long as I have oversight -- which, is built into the military structure to which we both adhere.”

“Ambitious?” The woman looked a little bit like she dreaded the answer. Jazz wasn’t sure what the problem was. Why didn’t she want them in Slytherine? Oh, hey. That meant _information gathering!_ Jazz’s favorite! “You said you were content where you are in your… army.”

“Just because killing our _god_ is not a viable advancement strategy,” Prowl informed her in an even voice that Jazz could tell concealed some ruffled plating. He knew just how many recruiters had managed to get through to Prowl in the early days of the war and suggest just that, clearing the way greater rank and control. “Does not mean we reached the positions of second and third in command of _an interstellar army_ without ambition.”

“I suppose Slytherine it is. Merlin help us all.”

“Besides I like snakes!” Jazz said brightly, just to needle the woman some more. “They’re adorable when they get up on your engine block to keep warm. So much fun to talk to while you’re waiting for them to wake up enough to move. What?” He smiled at the woman’s horrified expression. “You don’t do that?”

“I do,” Prowl said, which Jazz knew was a dirty filthy lie, but who said Prowl didn’t have a sense of humor? “But humans don’t have engine blocks so I wouldn’t expect her to understand.”

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	7. Famous AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz scratches an itch, but buying sex isn’t what he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: BDSM, Prostitution
> 
> A short oneshot in my [The Perfect Song](https://archiveofourown.org/series/672836) series, taking place sometime after Cadenza.

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_Encore! Encore! Encore!_

Jazz had already done two encore songs, so this time the lights fell and he slipped off of the suddenly dark stage. Still keyed up from the performance, Jazz danced around his stage manager, Blaster, sawing the bow across his violino to create a excited, almost violent melody he made up on the spot.

Blaster laugh. “Show off.”

“Always,” Jazz drawled back, finishing up with a complicated ascending scale, before pulling the bow down with one last crashing note. Most musicians couldn’t improvise like Jazz could. Every member of his new caste -- built to it, or transfered from the noble caste -- followed precise instructions that scrolled across their HUDs during a performance. They could handle the instruments, true, and some of them could pretend to improvise by keeping short pieces where they could be opened quickly with little pause.

But Jazz had learned to play almost entirely without access to his HUD, and as a result the could flow from one note to the next without guidance. He could make up things, not just in during songwriting, but right here, right now, while Blaster laughed at his antics. It was a skill worth showing off.

“So?” he demanded.

“She’s waiting in your trailer, you hedonist.” Blaster gave him a playful shove. “Go wind down. Sleep this time!”

“No promises,” Jazz joked back, leering at him

With the sort of familiarity that came from having been built as one of the stagehands, Jazz avoiding the crowds and the fans as he made his way out of the stage area proper and slipped around the trailers the other performers were living out of until he reached his own. Capsize, the large mech in charge of watching over Jazz’s trailer, greeted him and let him again his guest waited inside. Thanking him, he opened the door and went in.

Red paint that glittered in the low light and matching optics that smouldered enticingly… She was pretty enough. Gorgeous, objectively. Probably built for this work, and good enough that only nobles and celebrities could afford her services.

“Hiya,” he greeted. “Lemme just put this away and we can get started.”

“Take your time,” the femme answered in a voice like microfiber cloth. So smooth and soft Jazz could practically feel it. Nice. “Would you like to review my credentials?”

“Sure.”

Jazz opened the file to look at it while he cleaned up the violino and placed it carefully in its case. Ruby… her name even matched… certainly looked great on file. She was a freelancer. Maybe not perfectly free to leave her job by getting a caste exemption, but there wasn't anyone taking a percentage of her pay for themselves, and her rates were high enough she'd have quite a bit of freedom to take or refuse jobs even if she only took a few per vorn. And her privacy policy was simply stellar. Perfect. He took out a pitcher started filling it from the spigot, delivering two cubes to the table Ruby sat next to, then fetched a sampler package of different additives. He liked them all, but he didn’t pick one and add it to his cube just yet. Once he’d set the full pitcher of plain energon down on the table, he took the other chair at the table.

“We’ll go over what you want first,” Ruby opened the conversation. “Your manager was specific enough about what he was looking for, but I would prefer to discuss it with you before proceeding.”

Relieved that she was willing to take control of the conversation, Jazz nodded. “Need a dom,” he stated frankly.

“Your safewords?”

“Helium for totally fine, neon for kind of leery but don’t stop, and argon stop that but not full halt. Full halt’s caesium.” Jazz’s doorwings twitched. He wasn’t nervous, precisely, but it always felt awkward to talk about this, even though he knew it was better than handing control over to a stranger without a word.

Ruby nodded, like she’d expected that. They weren’t, Jazz had learned, standard safewords, but they were close enough, and Blaster would have had to register them when he hired a dom for him. “And you wanted submission, a collar and leash, sensory deprivation, bondage, alt mode restriction, rough interfacing, gentle handling, praise, feeding, and electricity play, correct?”

Jazz only nodded. He didn’t technically need the blindfold, but he’d found buying sex went so much better if he couldn’t see. “Don’t leave any marks,” he said firmly. “Don’t need any pics of that sort of thing circulating next cycle.”

“As you wish.” Ruby poured herself a measure of energon from the pitcher, and then presumptuously poured one for Jazz, and Jazz felt his fuel pump start hammering. “What would you like me to call you?”

“Pet,” Jazz said quietly, fans coming on quietly. "Toy."

“And what would you like to call me?”

“Prowl.”

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	8. Superpower Swap AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl is the weapon, and Jazz is the hand that holds him.

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Soft music played through the room. Darkened, save for the light of a dozen screens, the room was eerie. And because it was eerie, quiet, and sorrowful, people avoided the tactician’s domain. Which was just how Jazz liked it.

Reports glowed on some screens, scrolling far too fast for most to see. Others showed real-time footage from satellites, more detailed versions of the simulation playing out on his own, expanded HUD. Communication lines glowed and Jazz directed the mechs advancing, retreating, fighting and dying like a symphony. There was no reason to repeat his commands out loud. One screen showed nothing more than the scrolling _acknowledged, acknowledged, acknowledged, acknowledged_ of hundreds of commanders receiving their commands and bending to his will. They needed no further acknowledgement from Jazz, so long as he saw his commands reflected in their actions on one of his many, many video feeds.

It was dizzying. More than one assistant had walked in to hand Jazz a long-overdue cube of energon, only to fall over, processors overclocked from incidental exposure to so much incoming data. And that was only what was on the screens; the simulations his predictive software projected to his HUD and overlayed onto those screen easily doubled or tripled the data points. And Jazz had left over processing power to hum along with the music.

Jazz was glad, in a way, no one but him could read all of the feeds without collapsing. Individually they weren’t too disheartening. Together -- the reports, the satellite feeds, the data on his HUD -- they all brought Jazz to one, single, inevitable conclusion:

They were losing.

“That’s what you have me for,” a cold, dark voice whispered from the shadows. There should have been no way for a mech to intrude on his sanctuary, but this mech always managed. Jazz was inclined to label it magic, if only to keep his predictive software from throwing fits whenever Prowl showed up where he wasn’t supposed to be.

“Dunno what yer talkin’ about, mech,” Jazz drawled, just to be contrary.

Prowl stalked from the shadow on utterly silent feet, without even a whisper of sound to distinguish him from a hologram. Adaptive camouflage plating changed from the shades of grey and dark blue that would break up his outline in the shadows and help him blend in, to an almost mocking mirror of Jazz’s own black and white armor. Despite his vast processing power, Jazz had never been able to determine if that was the mech’s native color scheme, or if it was another setting for his adaptive plating he used just to get on Jazz’s nervewires.

“Of course you know what I’m talking about,” the mech said in a clipped, almost bored, tone. “You only play this song when your data indicates our chances of winning are exceedingly low. Altering that data is explicitly my function.”

Choosing not to play the game any further today, Jazz turned his back on Prowl -- a gesture of trust, from one killer to another, even if Jazz’s murders were always once or twice removed. Prowl was usually the weapon, and Jazz didn’t miss how Prowl’s rigidly controlled doors twitched. A swift transmitted command to Teletraan rearranged the screens. Reports continued to scroll, but across one single screen, too tiny for even Jazz to see them. It was only for a klik. The satellite data took their places, leaving room for Jazz to bring up a map.

“I need these three bases gone,” Jazz said, highlighting them.

Prowl studied the map. At his own transmitted commands, Teletraan brought up the blueprints of the three Decepticon bases, as best as they could be constructed. He spent some time studying them, then sent them away.

Silently he turned and stalked back into the shadows, adaptive camouflage making him disappear from Jazz’s sight like a ghost.

Jazz could see everything, everyone, who lifted a gun to fight in this war, but he could only see Prowl when the Praxan let him. And yet... Jazz turned back to the screens and reset them to what they’d been before Prowl had made himself known. Already he was calculating the effects Prowl would have on the battlefields. He imagined the problematic Decepticon garrisons disappearing from his calculations in clouds of smoke and fire. The music changed, and something a little less sorrowful was replaced by an old piece, where the composer had punctuated his piece with the booms of cannonfire.

He couldn’t see Prowl, but he saw his footsteps across the march of war as clear as the sun.

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	9. Summer Camp AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz didn’t come to camp to make friends.

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_ Rehabilitation my aft, _ Jazz sulked, using and ironwood stick to draw nonsense designs in the crystal forest substrate.  _ This is state sponsored torture. _

Fortunately, the other mechs -- spoiled, high-class brats whose mentors wanted to experience the “great planetary wilderness” -- gave the criminal in their midst a wide berth, like poor and desperate was a contagious disease. He didn’t want to interact with them. Jazz had no idea why he was  _ here _ instead of jail. Jail, according to his mentor, was brutal but it built character and allowed a young criminal to make contacts useful later in life. Here, Jazz was forced to sit through the morning lecture on Primus’ grace, forced to sing dumb friendship songs while he waited for his midday meal, and spent the rest of the time dodging dumb “camp” activities.

Jazz wasn’t afraid of the dumb zap ponies; he just didn’t see the point.

He’d thought more than once about escaping. It should have been laughably easy to slip out of the complex and into the wilderness. But that wilderness  _ was _ Happy Funtime Fragitall’s primary security. Jazz could get out of the camp’s bounds easy enough, if he could ditch the house arrest tracker on his ankle, but then he’d be stuck trying to navigate a thousand mechanomiles of forest before he found some sort of civilization. Jazz wasn’t delusional enough to think he could do it. There were old stories (learned here, during the before bed “campfire stories” stupidity) about secret oasis, springs of energon as pure and sweet as highgrade that could sustain a traveller… if they could be found. If they weren’t just mythical fae-tales. Otherwise… he’d be hunting and chewing crystals for fuel, and Jazz wasn’t dumb enough to think he’d survive that trek without divine intervention.

Primus didn’t pay attention to street scrubs like Jazz. No matter what those daily sermons claimed about their god “loving everyone”.

“There you are,” a mild voice called out and Jazz looked up with a snarl. He recognized that voice!

Sure enough, a police-patterned black and white mech approached and sat down next to Jazz, marring his pristine finish with the substrate. Prowl. The officer who’d arrested him for the theft that had gotten him sent here. “What the frag are you doing here?”

“I’m a counselor -- a supervisor for the young mechs here.” Prowl leaned forward to look at the dirt doodles, and Jazz had the irrational desire to throw himself forward and protect his collection of angry, random lines from the policemech’s gaze.

“I know what the frag a counselor is,” Jazz snapped.

“Then you know that about half of the counselors here are off-duty policemechs?” Prowl asked mildly and Jazz resisted the urge to snarl again, because he  _ hadn’t _ known that. “You’re not a bad mech, Jazz. I recommended you be sent here instead of to prison, since this is your first offense.”

“Would’a preferred prison,” Jazz muttered.

“I doubt that,” Prowl pointed out. “Prison is a punishment--”

“And this isn’t?”

“-- while here you get a chance to not be on the streets for a bit. It’s a chance to learn to be something other than a criminal, Jazz.”

Jazz snorted in disbelief. 

“Would you like to hear a story?” Prowl asked, picking up his own stick to draw his own seemingly random lines in the substrate.

“Can’t stop you.” Jazz glared at Prowl’s art, feeling surprisingly put upon by the officer doing it. That was  _ his _ sulking thing!

“You could ask me to leave.” Prowl added a wavy line to the dirt. 

“Didn’t ask you to sit down, mech.”

“Once upon a time,” Prowl started his story, saying the storybook words with a gravitas absent from the dumb campfire stories. “There was a young, angry mech. He was hungry and cold, but he’d been adopted by a poor, vicious loan shark who needed a heavy and figured adopting someone would be cheaper than hiring one. So he trained his young ward to fight, beat him when he didn’t follow directions, and went about his business.”

Jazz’s lines went cold. This was sounding like his own situation, except his mentor was a burglar and a thief, and had wanted a look out. 

“The young mech didn’t know anything but how to attack people,” Prowl went on, “so it was inevitable that one cycle he’d attack the wrong sort of person. Who wasn’t really important, except that this person was high caste, and screamed for the police, who came running at his call. He fought them too, but they were much better trained, and there were more of them, and soon they had him on the ground in stasis cuffs. The young mech’s mentor, in the meantime, had slipped away in the chaos.”

Just like Jazz’s mentor had abandoned him when the police had interruped their robbery. “Slagsucker.”

“Indeed,” Prowl agreed. He kept drawing in the substrate, though Jazz had mostly stopped to listen to the story, despite himself. “So the young mech went to court to his actions. He should have gone to jail… but he didn’t. Instead the defense attorney appointed to his case argued that he should be given a second chance, and he was sent here to learn to be something other than a criminal. The young mech resented this decision of course, and he sulked for weeks. Then a new counselor came, the Circuit-Su Master Yoketron. Fascinated by the fighting displays and competitions he ran, the young mech joined his classes. But Circuit-Su isn’t just learning better ways to hit people; there is discipline and forethought -- both of which the young mech very much needed.”

“Now I know yer making this up, mech,” Jazz scoffed. Famous martial arts masters didn’t come to train summer camp brats.

“No. This is a true story,” Prowl corrected mildly, spreading his doors out to catch more of the sunlight. “You see, that young mech… that was me. Yoketron took me on as a student once my tenure at the camp was done, and, eventually, I joined the same police force that had arrested me decades before. That’s why I asked the judge to send you here instead of to jail: in your story, I saw the reflection of my own. But this,” he gestured at the forest around them, “isn’t a guarantee of a better life. Just a chance to be something other than a criminal for a while, and it’s up to you to keep it up once you’re released.”

“I ain’t gonna be a police officer!”

“Probably not,” Prowl didn’t fight him on that point. “What would you like to do? What would you like to  _ learn _ while you have the chance. Music maybe?”

Jazz stiffened. “No.”

“Then you wouldn’t be interested if I told you that Tritone came up with me to volunteer her time as a councilor?”

“No,” Jazz insisted, sulking. Because he  _ was _ interested Primusdamnit. “Go away.”

“Alright.” Prowl stood, brushing the dirt off his aft and legs, leaving streaks of it on his plating. “But think about it.”

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	10. Secret Agent AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young officer named Prowl is sent on a ~~date~~ very important mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question: What do you do when your AU prompt is cannon for this fandom/pairing?

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Even scrubbed free of all his faction decals and wearing a distinctly not black and white coat of paint, Prowl still felt edgy in the primarily Decepticon crowd. It was a classier bar than Prowl thought Decepticons usually frequented, but he supposed at least some of the officers had to have higher class tastes than cheap booze and loudly broadcasted lob ball games. Instead, this place sported quiet classical music, darkened, private plush booths, and an atmosphere hazy with smoke.

Why had their spy chosen this place to meet and pass on his info? Prowl could understand the mech not wanting to break cover, but surely a dead drop, or someplace less  _ conspicuous _ in general, would have been better.

The commander had sent Prowl because, though he wasn’t an interrogator, he was still an unknown to the Decepticon hierarchy, and he had the processing power to hack his way through the agent’s firewalls if necessary. They all hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but they were taking the opportunity to check up on the agent’s mental status, since he had requested an in-person meeting. Which meant Prowl wasn’t to leave until he had had a chance to go through the agent’s processors.

From the tone of the briefing, Prowl understood that they were more concerned about insanity, or the effects blending in with criminals had on the agent’s morals and actions, than disloyalty. 

Very well then. If there was one thing Prowl knew how to do was investigate a crime.

Steeling himself and reminding himself that he was, currently, unrecognizable as anything but another wandering neutral mech from Praxus, Prowl went up to the lounge’s bar. There were only a couple stools here; apparently mechs were supposed to lurk in the shadowed corners here.

“Can I get you a drink?” The bartender was a dark, graceful femme with a subtle glitter sheen to her paint. She fit right in. “Need a table?”

“A River White, made with solar Praxan engex instead of Polyhexian?” Prowl murmured back. “And I’m waiting for someone. We may want a table then.” 

“You got it, honey,” the femme cooed, pulling out the ingredients for the drink. 

Prowl let himself watch her until he had his drink, then turned to watch the fortepiano and violino players. The stage wasn’t really designed or set up for watching the performers; they were meant to be heard, add ambiance to the room, not seen by the majority of the patrons. But Prowl had to wait here for his contact and figured it’d be less suspicious to watch the musicians than to try and peer into the booths and try and identify the other patrons.

The violinist was good, swaying sensuously back and forth with the music, a barely there shadow on the stage, but the fortepianist could use some work. He didn’t miss any notes or anything so obvious, but Prowl played the fortepaino as well, and could tell he was not up to his partner’s level of skill.

By the time the two musicians had finished their set, Prowl had almost given up on meeting the agent here as a wild gesling chase. He turned back to the bar, contemplating the final dregs of his White River. He should go, before he started standing out and those pitying looks the bartender was giving him turned suspicious, but he was reluctant to report a failure to the commander.

“Buy ya another drink, sugar?” 

“I’m waiting for someone,” Prowl answered automatically.

“Saw ya come in. You’ve been waitin’ a long time,” the violinist slid onto the stool next to him, eeling around Prowl’s attempt to block the move with his doorwing. “Stood up?”

“Probably.”

“Want some company?”

Prowl looked over at the violinist, getting his first really good look at him. Black paint, red visior, the subtle hint of claws and fangs… a dark purple Decepticon symbol etched onto his chest. He wasn’t bad to look at, but fraternizing with the enemy wasn’t exactly wise.

But then how long could he insist on waiting here for the agent he was supposed to meet if he sitting alone?

“Alright. My name’s Cardamom.” He held out his hand.

“M’name’s Bariolage.” The mech took Prowl’s red-painted fingers in his own dark claws, and, instead of shaking, swept them up to his lips to plant a warm, chaste kiss on the back of Prowl’s hand. “What’d you think’a th’performance?”

“I think you need a better fortepiano player to accompany you,” Prowl answered bluntly, then immediately wanted to bash his head against the bartop.

“Do I?” A slow smile showed off the sharp fangs in the low light. “I don’t suppose you know anyone?”

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Answer: ~~Bang your head against the wall until they start flirting.~~ /headdesk


	11. Mermaid AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl is shipwrecked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** Character death

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The red sun beat down on Prowl as he clung to the wreckage of the _Golden Swan._ This was the largest piece of metal-foam he could find, and the only reason he hadn’t drowned yet. Lack of fuel was making him weak, and the sun baked his circuits. Soon he would begin to hallucinate from the processor damage. Or the sharkticons would find him. Prowl had heard every tale there was of the Rust Sea and knew the call of beauty, strong winds and calm seas, were an illusion. The sea god was wrathful, and soon he would claim the latest of countless victims. Prowl.

He was too far from shore for any sort of rescue. There was no one out here _to_ rescue him. Still, Prowl resisted the idea of just letting go of his makeshift raft and letting the sea god have him.

He had no leverage, and nearly tipped the wreckage over doing so, but he managed to climb most of the way onto the raft. It was only a thin illusion of safety, and fully out of the rust laden water, Prowl could feel the heat of the sun increase it felt like a hundred fold. But Prowl was tired from fruitless swimming and now that he wouldn’t drown if he stopped moving for even an instant, he sheltered his head under his doors as best he could and let his optics flicker off and fell into a fitful powersave cycle.

_Sai~lor~♪_

Prowl woke groggily, not sure what had woken him. The night wind felt cool and pleasant, and millions of stars spread out overhead. Nighttime…?

_Sai~lor~♪_

He’d rather expected to be woken before the sun set, by the sharkticons that had eaten the other sailors’ corpses after the storm. Prowl had watched the feeding frenzy from a distance that had seemed insufficient then, now… Other than his meager raft, Prowl saw none of the other flotsam of the _Golden Swan,_ and no sharkticons. With a sigh, Prowl carefully twisted to lay on his back, looking up at the sky. Like all good sailors, Prowl knew the stars, the constellations that would tell him where he was. There was Akrek, Dakrek, and Miax, the northern trio. Those were the most important stars for a sailor to know, because together they always pointed north, as reliably as a metal compass. Too bad he didn’t have an astrolabe, else he might have been able to figure out where he was, where the current was taking him.

As it was… Prowl thought about fuel. He would need some soon, but he had not fishing gear, and he did not dare to leave his raft to dive for fish. Maybe he should just go back into powersave, and conserve his energy for as long as possible. His optics flickered off…

_Sai~lor~sai~lor~♪_

… and groaned as his recharge sequence refused to initiate.

He looked back up to the sky and contemplated the stars again. So many of them had stories, heroes and monsters. Solus’ Anvil, they mythical workplace of the crafter-Prime of legends. The Northern Temple of Primus and the Southern Altar of the Unmaker. The Large and Small Pyramids…

As a young sailor, Prowl recalled his favorite star story had been that of the Tiny Mountain, the story of how the smallest insecticon had managed to climb all the way to the sky.

He needed fuel. His frame was already weak and his tank gnawed at his insides. If he had some fuel he’d be able to recharge, and maybe last a day longer. Longingly he watched a seabird settle onto the surface of the rust laden water and pluck tiny something’s from under it. The tiny somethings might be too small for a hungry sailor, but maybe they’d attract other, larger things to prey on them. Maybe Prowl could catch the seabird if he paddled over there _really_ quietly…

The large ripple of something passing beneath the surface of the water startled the seabird into the air before Prowl could do more than dip his hands in. A fin broke the surface… a sharkticon or shipfish. Prowl flopped back down onto his back. Shipfish were thought of as friendly, because they played in the wake created by the large ships as they moved, but like all beautiful things, they could turn vicious when a sailor fell in the water. Prowl would almost prefer a sharkticon.

Maybe he could bite open one of his fuel lines and drip it into the water and bring the sharkticon closer and eat _it?_

_Sail~or~♪ Come with me~♪_

It was a dumb plan, but Prowl was starting to get desperate. If he couldn’t just recharge until he died, then he needed to do something so he’d live. Hopeless as it was. Maybe he’d get lucky and the sharkticon would be small enough to grab.

At least death-by-sharkticon would be relatively quick. Unlike fuel starvation.

Prowl winced, biting into the fuel line on his wrist. Low fuel warnings shrieked in renewed offense at the tiny drop that flowed out of the wound. Prowl licked fuel from his lips, and resisted the urge to drink more from his own lines. It was a psychosomatic comfort only and would do nothing but waste fuel in the long run. Instead he braced himself and plunged the wounded hand into the water. The rust _burned,_ but maybe the scent would bring some sort of fuel.

He almost shrieked when fingers slid between his, clasping hands. Prowl yanked his hand back, only to find them caught fast by the hand of a mech.

Prowl thought it was a corpse, one of the crew of the _Golden Swan._ Then sheer webbing between the fingers, and dark claws registered. A hand. A _living_ hand… Cautiously he peeked back over the edge of the raft and saw… saw the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. A blue visor as deep as the sea, a smirk as playful as the waves. He moved effortlessly under the water, and Prowl could just barely see the glistening tail as it disappeared from sight in the depths. A Neriad. Prowl was enchanted.

He barely registered the renewed ache as the neriad guided his hand back under the water, silently instructing him to hold onto his strong, finned shoulder. Then the creature surged from the water, wrapping both arms around Prowl in an embrace and locking their lips together in a kiss.

It was like kissing the spark of Primus himself, Prowl thought fuzzily, tasting salt and fresh water and a thousand other things he couldn’t name. He embraced the neriad back, turning off his optics, blinding himself to everything but the wonder of finally, finally being loved by something of the sea with the same passion he’d felt when he’d first set sail as a young mech…

He didn’t even notice being pulled off the raft and under the waves.

_Sai~lor~♪ Sai~lor~♪ Come with me~♪_

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone’s wondering [why I don’t write Mermaid AUs.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhyOGAlcz3s)


	12. Royalty AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ** _warnings/notes:_** asexual prowl, drugged sex, arranged marriage, mutual nonconsent, aftermath.
> 
> This is a direct continuation of [a previous Noble AU one shot I did.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27345447)

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As soon as their spark chambers closed, releasing each other, Jazz flung himself off of Prowl. In his haste, he ended up rolling off of the berth and crashing to the floor. He rolled onto his stomach and retched trying to empty his tank, and was distantly grateful for the ritual fast before the ceremony because there was nothing in his tank expell.

That had been so much worse than he’d imagined.

Prowl had consented, Jazz comforted himself, but it was a thin comfort. Prowl had consented as much as he’d been able. Neither of them had had much of a choice at all, but they’d discussed how to endure the bonding required of both of them. Jazz had measured out a careful dose of the aphrodisiac they’d been given, and Prowl had drunk it willingly. Knowing that the pleasure was artificial, Jazz hadn’t bothered taking more time than necessary to make it painless. He hadn’t let himself be lured into believing he had an eager partner; he’d broken Prowl’s seals with his fingers, and knowing the resulting overloads weren’t  _ real _ had kept his equipment from pressurizing. He’d let Prowl’s drugged frame hump him, instead of taking him, to give them both the paint transfers their elders would be looking for. Then they’d sparkmerged, initiated bonding protocols…

Prowl wasn’t just indifferent to interfacing, as he’d implied before they started. Jazz’s frame convulsed again, tank constricting painfully as it tried once again to expel its nonexistent contents. Spark to spark it had been impossible to escape Prowl’s revulsion for the act.

A hand settled between the Polyhexian prince’s doorwings, and Prowl joined him on the floor, kneeling to support Jazz’s frame from his bout of retching. 

Jazz flinched. “You don’t need to stay,” he said, and meant it. It’d be perfectly understandable if Prowl wanted to leave and never set optic on him again. Jazz wasn’t sure how he’d look himself in a mirror after this. 

“I do not need to leave either,” Prowl pointed out. The marriage coding sat in his processor like a lead weight. With it he could have forced Prowl to do anything, stay, go, whatever but he refused to use it. Right now all he wanted to do was delete the disgusting thing from both their minds.

The newborn bond writhed with their combined emotions, barely enough to tell them both the depth of the other’s conflicted feelings. Jazz couldn’t tell what Prowl was feeling, and he viciously deleted the regret associated with that thought. He’d always envied his creator’s strong bond, but the only way to strengthen this one with Prowl would be repeated merges and he was  _ never _ doing this with Prowl again! Besides, if Prowl hated him, wouldn’t it be better if he couldn’t feel it clearly? The only purpose of subjecting himself to that would be as punishment…

It wasn’t like anyone else would punish Jazz though. Because of their situation, Jazz hadn’t even commited a crime. Prowl was the only one who might punish Jazz for this transgression.

What he didn’t understand was why Prowl wasn’t taking advantage of the freedom Jazz was allowing him to leave. Or yell. Or lash out in any of a hundred other ways. Did he think Jazz would withdraw his ability to do so if he did?

Instead Prowl stayed there, as steady frame, supporting Jazz despite the roiling emotions Jazz could barely sense beneath his plating. It wasn’t quite soothing, but Prowl was a pillar of strength, holding him up while… Jazz realized he was sobbing.

It wasn’t fair!

“You don’t have to stay,” Jazz said again, once his sobs had faded to exhaustion.

“It would be illogical to hate you when it was so obvious you did not want this either,” Prowl said in that damnably even voice. “You did not enjoy it anymore than I did.” Cool optics swept over the Polyhexian prince’s still-shuddering frame. “Quite a bit less than I did.”

“Still forced you.”

“Since it became clear I would not desire any sort of interfacing acts, I have been told that once I was married I would have no choice to change,” Prowl said bluntly. “The marriage code would not allow me to refuse, drugs could be used to force me to feel desire, and both would be deployed until I fit my partner’s desire because no dominant partner would allow my ‘idiosyncrasies’ to persist. When the matchmaker described the known enjoyment you take from sexual activities of all stripes, I feared the worst.”

“Prowl,” Jazz said sincerely. “I’m not sure I’ll ever willing  _ touch _ you again.”

“Difficult, as we will have to share a berth at least until your creators pass away,” Prowl pointed out logically. “My things -- those my own creators are willing to part with -- are already being moved into your rooms.”

Jazz groaned. “I’ll sleep in the solar until I can get another berth moved in there.”

“Sweet, but unnecessary.”

“I’m not going to make you sleep with me!”

“Listen to me,” Prowl commanded, and Jazz laughed. It was a thin, almost hysterical sound.

“Who’s the dominant mech in this marriage again?”

Prowl’s optics narrowed. “If you wish it to be you, then you will have to force me to submit.” Jazz recoiled, flinching from the words and nearly retching again at the reminder. “I thought not,” Prowl murmured, hands not quite gentle, but firm and steadying as he helped Jazz sit up again. “So you will listen to me.”

“Yeah.”

“I do not consider it necessary to recharge separate from you. Sharing a berth in that context would be quite pleasant as long as you do not bring your lovers into our shared space.”

Jazz shook his head, disbelieving. Prowl was saying... “Let’s get checked out and this whole bonding night  _ over _ with before we start planning for the future.”

“Acceptable.”

Jazz leaned on Prowl more than he liked, but he was grateful for the help. At the door, Prowl stepped away and placed a careful distance between them and Jazz didn’t object. 

He cast his gaze back to the berth they’d bonded on. “I think I’m going to have that thing burned.” 

“Acceptable.”

Prowl’s agreement was so flat, that Jazz couldn’t help but snicker. Tantrums weren’t exactly proper prince behavior, but Jazz thought he could swing it if his creators objected to their mutual cathartic destruction.

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	13. Fake Dating AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not quite a date... Fake sex slave?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ** _Warning:_** references to a practice of sexually enslaving prisoners of war.

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“That one.”

Prowl fought weakly as large, rough hands picked him out of the pile of captives. He wasn’t currently painted up like the Autobots’ infamous 2IC, but it wouldn’t take an interrogator more than a few kliks to realize he wasn’t just some random Praxan soldier. Silently he brought up firewalls, readied traps and counter attacks for interrogation. He tried again to reboot his visual feed, but got only static.

Clawed fingers, much smaller than the hands currently holding him upright, held Prowl’s chin, moving him this way and that while the Decepticon examined him. “Perfect,” said the one that had chosen him. “Take him to my quarters.”

Realizing he hadn’t been singled out for interrogation, Prowl renewed his struggles. No…

Both Decepticons laughed. The smaller claws caressed Prowl’s cheek while another hand stroked his bumper. “Good thing I like ‘em feisty. Make sure he’s cuffed, m’kay?”

“Yes, sir,” rumbled the large mech, and pulled Prowl out of the cell.

He was more than  _ cuffed _ when the large Decepticon -- he had to be a tank of some sort -- laid him out on the officers berth. He tried not to panic. Logically, this was a better situation than in the dungeon, awaiting interrogation. Prowl would survive the violation. Maybe. Hopefully. But even if the officer he’d been claimed by was cruel and sadistic, and was about to rape him to death this very cycle, his precious data would be safe.

Still, a visceral panic bolted through him when the door opened again and another mech, humming a jaunty tune, came in. Prowl tried to wiggle away, but his previous struggles worked against him now; he’d been bound too tightly.

The Decepticon chuckled.

Prowl heard a beep, then the Decpticon settled on the edge of the berth. “Y’can’t see me, can ya?” Helpless to resist the claws on his chin forcing him to look sightlessly up, Prowl spat. Instead of enraging the mech, he only chuckled. “Y’missed. Suppose that answers m’question. We’ll have t’fix that.” And Prowl found him pushed back against the berth, the mech climbing on top of him. Prowl struggled again, but the Decepticon ignored him. Something poked against his optic. “Hold still,” the Decepticon murmured, “or I’ll slip an’ y’will never see again.”

It sounded more like a caution than a taunt, and Prowl stilled until his frame only trembled. What was…?

The Decepticon hummed as he worked. 

A klik later, Prowl’s visual systems and HUD both rebooted and he found himself looking up into a cruel, bright visor framed by a dark helm. The Decepticon grinned, showing off his long, sharp fangs. “Hello there, boss.”

“Jazz?” Prowl disliked how it came out a question, but it seemed so very unbelievable. 

“Meister,” Jazz corrected, climbing off the Praxan now that he didn’t need to hold him still. “Even in private. Got a bug-killer goin’ right now, so we should be safe. I’m gonna untie ya now.”

“Thank you,” Prowl said automatically, still processing his change of fate.

Jazz quirked a smile that showed off his fangs again, and started freeing the Autobot from his bindings. “I pulled ya before interrogations started,” he reported. “Anyone still down in th’brig I need t’arrange accidents fer while I’m workin’ on gettin’ ya rescued?”

“No,” Prowl answered. “I was the only officer captured.” The others didn’t have anything of worth to an interrogator; they should be given the chance to survive their capture.

“Makes things easier,” Jazz murmured, freeing Prowl’s hands. “Y’think y’can play th’part of m’reluctant plaything fer a bit? Might take a deca or more t’get ya away clean.”

“How… complete must our deception be?” Prowl looked Jazz over as the dark mech slid off the berth to rummage through a footlocker on the other side of the room. He wasn’t an unattractive mech, even in his Meister disguise. If he had to have sex with him… Prowl would do it, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to refrain from hating himself, or his agent, for it afterward.

Something must have shown in his face or field, because, “I ain’t known fer lettin’ others watch m’have m’fun,” he assured. “Gotta leave ya tied up on th’berth, lookin’ debauched in case someone looks in on ya while I’m gone, but,” Jazz made a sound of triumph and held up a rather large false spike. “Y’can use this. Go enjoy yerself in th’shower.”

“I cannot simply leave my panels closed?” Prowl asked acidly.

“Playthings don’t get modesty panels,” Jazz answered, ducking his head and looking away from Prowl’s accusing gaze. “Wish I could bend th’rules fer ya, boss, but yer th’first I’ve claimed, so I’m gonna be watched. Don’t have t’torture ya, but I can’t be seen goin’ soft. We’ll clamp ‘em open, ‘stead of removin’ ‘em but…” he held out the false spike again. “Debauched.”

Furious that there was no way around it, and embarrassed by the picture he’d have to paint of himself to keep Jazz’s cover, Prowl swiped the false spike from his hands. “Must I tonight?”

“Naw,” Jazz’s shoulders relaxed. “We’ll set up th’paint transfers an’ clamps now, then y’can do… that,” he nodded to the toy, “before we chain ya up tomorrow.”

“Paint transfers?” Prowl asked with dread.

Jazz’s ingenious solution to that was some steel wool soaked in Meister’s colors. Jazz very carefully put some very suggestive claw-marks on Prowl’s hips and bumper to clearly illustrate the story of a mech who’d taken an unwilling prisoner from behind, and even put a pair of dents from his fangs on one of Prowl’s doors. Then he rather artistically shredded select parts of the berth to make it look like Prowl had struggled and fought, while Prowl furiously scrubbed his thighs and crotch and aft with the steel wool to suggest he’d been fragged hard and with little consideration for his comfort. 

Prowl had to admit that the dried fluids was all he really lack to look… thoroughly debauched.

Jazz certainly wasn’t looking at him. He seemed somewhere between guilty and embarrassed on Prowl’s behalf as he offered Prowl a blanket to wrap himself in to hide how his panels had been forced open. “Y’stay there,” he said. “I’ll just sleep… over there,” he pointed to a patch of floor.

Prowl felt slightly guilty for driving him out of his berth, but not guilty enough to invite his agent to share when he looked like… this.

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	14. Reincarnation AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Optimus and Megatronus aren’t the only Primes that got to reincarnate. Y’know, just to be fair.

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The forge-scent clung to her, dust and molten metal and hot sparks and that soap she used to clean her hands when she was done. Her latest creation plunked down on the table in front of him before he felt her arms wrap loosely around his shoulders. Curiously, Alchemist Prime picked up this latest creation of his sister’s to examine it.

It was an odd shape, curved and hollow with a long neck-like structure down which a series of metal strings had been run. Alchemist touched them, and the thing made a less than pleasant  _ thrrmm. _ He wrinkled his nose while Solus laughed.

“I think it’s a successful experiment?” she teased. “Don’t you?”

“I believe it would be more successful if I knew what manner of weapon it was meant to be,” Alchemist responded evenly, still examining the thing. It didn’t seem to have any bladed edges or projectiles, and the more he handled it, the more certain he became that if he hit anyone with it, it would shatter. The sounds it made as he examined it were occasionally pleasant, but it also made more of those unpleasant buzzes. Was it supposed to weaponize the sound somehow?

“It’s not a weapon, you lout.” Solus picked the thing up and Alchemist let her. “It’s  _ art.” _

“Art?” Alchemist repeated the word. It was unfamiliar, which did not surprise him. Solus was very fond of making up words.

“An expression or application of creative skill and imagination.” She tucked the art-thing under her chin and plucked the strings. All of the sounds she made with it were pleasant.

“By that definition, your weapons are art as well,” Alchemist pointed out logically.

“Sure,” Solus agreed easily. “But not all arts have to be useful, or even tangible. Like this,” she plucked out a series of sounds that sounded… pleasantly organized. “Like it?”

“I suppose.” Alchemist still didn’t see the point. 

She pouted, and lowered the art-thing and draped herself back over her bother’s shoulders. “Well what are you doing?”

“I am designing a justice system.” Alchemist said, matter of factly. “As the population grows, our system of sibling mediation will become unwieldy. A replacement way of addressing transgressions will be necessary.” 

Solus poked through Alchemist’s notes. “A more practical art.”

Alchemist thought about that. He had not thought of his civilization building efforts as an application of creative skill and imagination, but the definition did fit once it had been pointed out. “I suppose,” he agreed, with a smile.

**_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_ **

Jazz groaned and slapped the alarm. He flopped back down on the berth, trying to banish the dream from his mind. He didn’t know why he was having those dreams, and today he didn’t need the lethargy that always clung to his frame after one. Prime’s new tactician was supposed to arrive today.

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	15. Faction Swap AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly 100 words, because this prompt is killing me...

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Pre-prog Decepticons gave Jazz the creeps.

Jazz got it, okay. Mea culpa on the Autobots. Pre-progs had a legit grievance. Many of the Decepticons had legit grievances. That didn't excuse throwing their lots in with a violent despot who wanted nothing more than to burn the galaxy to ash. If Megatron weren't so crazy, maybe some sort of arrangement could reached.

Frag. Jazz didn't even know what this one had originally been built for. He was a warframe now, if a smaller than average one. And now he had to interrogate him.

The red-opticked Praxan glared coldly back at him.

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	16. Neighbors AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl's trying to sleep.

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Prowl pulled the vinyl lined lead blanket tighter over his chevron and doors. It muffled the loud pounding that was all he could hear of the music from the apartment next door. The sound proofing on these units was surprisingly good given the rent, but nothing could block the irritating  _ whum whum whum _ of the that sort of bass. He didn’t even know what his neighbors were doing. Throwing some sort of party maybe.

Keeping him from recharging. This was ridiculous. He had  _ work _ tomorrow!

Giving up, Prowl threw off the blanket and flinched at the sudden increase in sound. Gah. The blanket had been doing better than he’d thought at blocking things out.

Maybe if he showed up at their door and said someone had filed a noise complaint, he’d turn things down. He stalked to his apartment door and threw it open. 

His neighbor -- the one he’d thought was responsible -- was scrubbing a hand over his optics blearily, grumpily orienting on the music they could both now hear clearly blasting from the apartment across the hall.

Jazz’s optic band lit up seeing Prowl. “Someone finally file a complaint?” he asked sleepily.

“Unfortunately not.” It had not occured to Prowl to actually file a complaint, wanting to see how he -- Jazz, he’d thought -- reacted to being asked to turn the music down first. “I’m Prowl. I live,” he gestured to the open door behind him.

Jazz’s optic band finally lit up in recognition. “Oh. Sorry. Thought y’were someone else.” The both looked at the door. “They’ve been doin’ this fer th’ last four nights. Ain’t sure how everyone else is managing t’sleep through it.   _ I’m _ gettin’ sick’a it.”

Prowl had not been here for the last four nights, busy with a case, which explained how he’d missed the escalating situation. Privately, offered Jazz a silent apology for believing him to be the trouble maker.

“I’ll pound on th’door if y’will call it in when they slam it in m’face again,” Jazz offered. “Police’ll take y’more seriously than they will me.”

Prowl considered. Claiming he was the officer responding to a complaint was still an option, but he disliked the deception. “It sounds like a good plan.”

“Awesome. And maybe we can celebrate ‘a good plan’ with a pick-me-up together in the morning?” Jazz grinned cheekily

“Only if it works,” Prowl said firmly.

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	17. Sidekick AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don’t ask how I got _this_ out of “sidekick”. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for sparklings, child soldiers, Jazz being Jazz, and Shockwave being Shockwave…

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Shockwave’s labs were just the worst. Always. Jazz had never been in one of these places of “science” -- more like perversions of the natural order -- without wanting to burn them down on sheer principle! Fortunately, that was generally his job and he was setting the charges now. He’d already uploaded a virus or sixty to chew through the Decepticon scientist’s data until it was useless, useless, useless…

What’s this? Jazz caught the words before they could escape his vocalizer and potentially activate any nasty traps. He’d disabled the cameras and other security he could find, of course, but it was  _ Shockwave. _ There was always the potential for there being something that wasn’t on the blueprints. Like a hidden room. Like  _ this _ hidden room.

Jazz debated with himself. Exploring it would disrupt his schedule, but if the room wasn’t on the blueprints chances were it had data that wasn’t on the main lab computer, and there was no guarantee it’d be destroyed when Jazz set off the charges. Decision made -- there wasn’t really any other decision he could have made -- a knife appeared in Jazz’s hand and he carefully disabled the door’s locks. He eased into the secret room.

It was a small room, at least. Jazz saw a computer terminal to the side, but his attention was dominated by the single cloning chamber that filled up most of the room.

Jazz shuddered. He hated cloning chambers. They never had anything good in them. It was bad enough destroying them when they had embryonic predacons inside; Jazz absolutely  _ hated _ having to wreck them when the monsters were developed enough to actually feel the pain.

This one… Jazz moved closer. It wasn’t a predacon. He shivered. It looked like a mech -- he couldn’t see well enough to discern what his alt mode might be intended to be, and a VR helmet covered the mech’s entire helm so Jazz couldn’t see how aware he might be, but the clone was complete or nearly so. Frag.

Jazz debated destroying it anyway. Cloning tanks  _ never _ had anything good in them, and it wasn’t like it’d be the first time he’d killed people. It wouldn’t even been the first time he’d killed noncombatants. Usually that was on accident, collateral damage. This… it sat uneasily in his tank.

Putting off a decision, Jazz drifted over a shelf of medical supplies. Maybe if he could sedate this who, whatever he was, he could bring him back to Ratchet and Wheeljack to sort out.

He found a hypo and a dose of strong sedative coding, so Jazz decided to risk it. He was acutely aware of how his time was ticking away. Shockwave would be returning in a few breems and Jazz had really hoped to catch the fragger in the explosion this time… and not get caught here himself. That was important too.

Of course the computer terminal was locked. Jazz just never was that lucky. He didn’t have time to hack  _ Shockwave’s _ security. It would have been nice to have an idea of what he was releasing before he did it. Whatever. Ratchet and Wheeljack could sort it. He opened the terminal’s casing to splice a datapad into the cloning tank’s main data line. Security bypassed, he told it to drain and open up, and while it did he crudely cut out as much of the terminal’s hard drive as he could.

The fluid in the tank drained away and Jazz subspaced the computer bits and slipped over to the tank, readying the sedative hyp as he did so.

The mech was shivering, and as the cloning tank finally opened up, Jazz heard a sparkbreaking  _ click, clickity-click, click! _ Frag. A sparkling. He’d thought he’d be dealing with an adult, thinking mech. His  _ frame _ was an adult’s. But no adult would ever click like that.

“Hey,” Jazz risked saying softly. “I know you’re scared, but we need to get this,” he reached for the VR helmet, “off of you. Please don’t cry or something that’ll get us both killed.”

_ Click! _

The mech’s optics were blue. Jazz was surprised by that. Blue and wide and frightened. He stroked the mech’s chevron. “Welcome to the real world.” He wasn’t hostile or anything, like Jazz had originally feared, but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to try and drag a sparkling-minded mech though a chaotic extraction. Carefully he slipped the hypo against the mech’s fuel line and sent him to sleep. 

Seeing the VR helmet had onboard data storage, Jazz ripped it out and subspaced it, then he started clawing the mech free of the wires and tubes attaching him to the tank.

“Time to go,” Jazz muttered, hoisting the mech, still trailing some wires, onto his shoulder. His doorwings flopped loosely, and Jazz pushed one out of his way.

Then he dropped the last of his charges into the tank itself and decided to call that good. His HUD was screaming at him that he needed to be  _ gone _ a breem ago and Shockwave would be back any nanoklik...

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	18. Circus AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz’s act requires two people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short and hopefully sweet b/c I have cramps and want to go back to bed...

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“Prowl!”

The ringmaster stopped at the call. He’d known this was coming, and while Prowl hadn’t exactly been dreading it, he hadn’t been looking forward to this conversation either. Jazz’s usual act required two people, and his partner -- Bluestreak -- had just left to pursue higher education. An admirable goal, but it meant Jazz needed a replacement.

No sense putting it off. Prowl turned to the knife-thrower with a nod of greeting. “Jazz.”

“Hey!” Jazz gave Prowl a big grin. “You feel like choreographing things right now? We gotta get some practice in before tomorrow’s show. Ain’t safe to do my act if you don’t know what to expect.”

“I know.” Prowl did know. “I was waiting until we had the tent,” he gestured with one door to the giant acid-resistant cloth building, “was up. I thought you were still helping set up the Midway games, though, or I would have approached you as soon as it finished.”

“I bribed Ratchet to do the games instead.” Jazz grinned proudly and Prowl had to admit that it was quite a feat. Ratchet, their circus’ doctor and vet, was more than capable of rigging each of the games himself, but he usually disdained to do so. Prowl wondered just what Jazz had bribed him with.

“Alright. Let’s get this out of the way then.”

“No need to sound so worried, lover,” Jazz heckled. “You know I never miss.”

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	19. Secret Identities AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl’s ~~date~~ Very Important Mission continues…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Direct continuation of [Secret Agent AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15525222/chapters/36321756)

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Prowl didn’t know why he offered himself up as a replacement fortepiano player. Bariolage was just so… Prowl didn’t even have the words. Graceful, maybe. Enchanting, definitely. But he was a Decepticon.

Doing a short set with him -- simple songs, their repertoire didn’t have much more than practice scales in common -- certainly didn’t help Prowl say goodbye and walk away. Unlike with his previous partner, the violinist didn’t sway seductively around the lounge’s small stage; he perched on the edge of the piano, looking down at Prowl with a half-lit visor, showing off the graceful curves of armor… Prowl’s fingers moved on automatic as he gazed back, unable to look away.

Both of their fans were humming loudly when the final notes of their set died away. Prowl’s plating already tingled, like the notes of their shared songs were caressing him _inside_ his armor.

His only consolation was that Bariolage did not look unaffected. He looked drunk.

“That was…”

“Yeah,” the violinist answered.

They stared at each other some more.

“Wanna…” Bariolage’s voice sounded thick and he stopped, reset his vocalizer. He still didn’t quite manage the same suave smoothness that had convinced Prowl to sit down at the keyboard. “Maybe you’d like to… take this somewhere else?” he managed, fans still burring loudly.

Aware his own were just as loud, Prowl managed to stop himself from instantly agreeing. Bariolage was a Decepticon… And he didn’t know what he should do.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, late b/c of errands and still not feeling well. I'll answer comments tomorrow... I hope.


	20. Coffeeshop AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl doesn’t know what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for PTSD, though there are no flashbacks or anything that should be triggering.
> 
> For Riz, because I know Coffeeshop AUs are some of her favorites.

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Prowl idled, engine shifting gears nervously, as he watched the cafe open. Smokescreen, the department therapist, had all but ordered him to spend a cycle, an _entire work shift,_ out of his apartment. Apparently hermetism was not healthy, and since he would not be allowed to return to work until he had satisfied Smokescreen that he had not taken any undue mental damage from the… hostage situation… Prowl had no choice but to comply.

 _You’re not well, Prowl. Anyone can see it,_ Smokescreen whispered in his mind, and Prowl violently downshifted his engine to dismiss the voice. It was _not_ the first time he’d shot someone or been shot in the line of duty. There was no reason for this time to have been any different. He hadn’t needed time off, or extensive counselling, for those incidents; Smokescreen had cleared him in a matter of cycles. Unlike now.

Smokescreen couldn’t know about the nightmares.

A work shift, an entire work shift, away from his apartment. Watching the mech slowly unlock the cafe’s front doors, Prowl reminded himself that this was why he usually ended up taking his first cup of energon in the department commissary. He had no skill at cooking, and nothing was open when he first went into work each morning. Doing a search for cafes that opened early had brought him here, and he was still too early to just walk in.

Finally though, the mech opened the door and flipped on the “open” sign, before disappearing back inside. Prowl waited for a count of five, then transformed.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. He’d had no real expectations, and yet this place managed to defy them.

Bright and clean was probably a given. There was space for a long line to form, going from the door, down a hall to display case and register. That was where most of the light Prowl could see was coming from, the display case. It was hard to take his optics off of it, but as he drew closer, he forced himself to look at the rest of the cafe.

It wasn’t dark; it just wasn’t as brightly lit as the case. There were several alcoves Prowl couldn’t see into, constructed for privacy. The tables and chairs looked like a missmash of thrift store finds, and the whole place had a cheerfully disorganized atmosphere.

“Good morning,” the chirped words brought Prowl’s attention back to the mech behind the counter. The same mech who’d unlocked the front door. Automatically Prowl catalogued the details: the same height as he was, with a bright blue visor, mostly white with a bright blue and red racing stripe painted down the center of his bumper, and a dark helm with a pert pair of sensor horns perched atop it. His accent was mild, but present, giving his words a flowing, melodious quality. “Do you need any help with the menu, or are you ready to order?”

Prowl looked back to the case, in which a dizzying number of pastries glowed, backlit by the lighting within the case. This place felt… dreamlike, and for a moment Prowl wondered if this was a dream. But no. He could smell the benzaldehyde and acetic acid from the cleanser the mech had used to wipe down the counters. The only scents Prowl had ever been able to discern in his dreams were ash and energon.

“Sir?”

“I’m sorry,” Prowl answered automatically, pulling his attention back to the mech. “Warm midgrade with a breakfast blend and two of whatever you want from the case.” The case was too bright, too enticing, to pass up completely, but Prowl did not feel up to making the decision himself.

“Nine shanix,” the mech said unhesitantly, and Prowl passed over the requested money without looking at what he’d rung up. “For here or to go?”

Go? Prowl wasn’t sure where else he would go right now. He couldn’t go to work, or back home… “For here.”

The mech smiled kindly. “Then why don’t you go find yourself a table and I’ll bring your order when it’s ready.”

“Thank you.”

The dreamlike quality of the cafe didn’t disperse when Prowl moved out of the bright light cast by the pastry case. He looked over the tables and chairs, each one subtly or not so subtly different from the others. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to “find” a table. They were all right there, no finding necessary…

“Here,” the barista said, touching Prowl gently on the arm and steering him toward one of the tables in a private alcove. “This one looks good. Sit down.” Prowl sat, noting that the chair was one of the few shaped to accommodate wing-like kibble. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? That would have been important for making a selection for himself… Spinning slowly, like a dancer, the barista brought the tray he’d been juggling in his other hand to rest on the table. Efficiently he offloaded the steaming mug of energon and plate with two pastries. “We don’t have a specific ‘morning blend’ so I gave you copper and powdered plastics, sweetened with a little mercury.” A chime announced the arrival of a second customer. “Enjoy!” He smiled and left Prowl to attend the new arrival.

Prowl wrapped his hands around the mug and watched the steam rise from the surface. It was too warm to drink just yet, so he just absorbed the warmth, listening to the barista chat with his new customer. The ebb and flow of the conversation didn’t really make an impact on Prowl, but it added a bright, cheerful counterpoint to the cheerful string music wafting from hidden speakers somewhere nearby.

He picked at one of the pastries without tasting it.

Soon, more quickly than Prowl could have possibly imagined, one customer became a line of them and the quiet music was covered by the sound of a crowd of mechs and femmes. He looked up and saw that all the tables were full, and that mechs were standing, waiting for to-go orders or places to sit. He should go…

Before he could stand, the barista mech glided by with his tray. “Hey. Here,” he plunked a fresh mug down on the table in front of Prowl. “Refill, on the house. And,” a datapad joined the cup, already lit with the title page of a book, “since you’re going to be here a while.”

Without waiting for a reply -- and why should he? He was obviously very busy -- the mech collected up the dirty mug and glided away, balanced on his two rear tires, to deliver mugs and plates to another table.

Slowly Prowl relaxed back into his chair. It would be rude to leave now.

He saw the bookfile was anthology of free fiction stories downloaded from the site of one of Iacon’s largest science fiction publishers. Science fiction wasn’t really Prowl’s thing, and he supposed he could use the datapad to search for something else to read, such a news publication, but the thought felt heavy and his fingers wouldn’t move, so he just flipped to the table of contents. None of the titles or authors were familiar to him so he flipped, almost unseeing, past it, then the copyright, publishing information, and disclaimer page. He flipped past the first page of the first story without realizing it, then flipped back to begin reading.

_“Wait! I have cookies!” Ditch yelped in fear. Yes, a stupid thing to say, but Ditch was desperate…_

A small _thump,_ brought Prowl out of the third story some time later. He looked up to see the barista exchanging his empty mug with yet another “refill”.

“I can pay for that,” Prowl insisted, noting that the crowd had thinned considerably while he’d been occupied. There was no line, and only two tables were occupied, one by a femme who was also reading a datapad and the other by a deployer and his two recordicons sharing a plate of pastries.

“Don’t worry about it,” the barista glided on his two wheels to the nearest table and began wiping away the crumbs left by its last occupant with the benzaldehyde scented cleanser. “Ric and I were both in the army, during the Kaonex uprising. Both of us came back more than a little shell shocked.” He shivered. “Looking at you’s a little like looking in the mirror.”

“I don’t need charity.” He didn’t need “help”, no matter what Smokescreen said.

“Of course not,” the mech said blandly, not sympathetic at all. Which was good, because Prowl felt a little like he’d explode if he had to deal with more sympathy. “But Ric and I made this place our sanctuary, and we don’t mind sharing.” Finishing up, the mech smiled kindly. “Stay as long as you like.”

Then he flitted away to collect discarded plates and mugs from the next table, wiping it clean. Prowl watched him for a long time, until another customer came in and the barista retook his place behind the counter, setting the tray of dirty dishes aside to be cleaned in the process. He turned to his new, steaming, drink and wrapped his hands around it for warmth.

He should go. He didn’t need help, or sympathy, or an endless procession of free drinks (or books or kind smiles or snatches of conversation between customers…), but he still didn’t know where he would go if he left.

And he still had half a pastry, he realized. He still didn’t know what either of them were called, and he couldn’t recall actually tasting them while he ate. There was a trickle of silvered frosting oozing out of the flaky layers of fuel and starting to tarnish in the air. In a trance, Prowl dipped his finger in the frosting and licked it away.

It was sweet… Of course it was, but it was a detail that had been washed out of Prowl’s world. He couldn’t yet decide if he liked it, but it was there, and so different from the scorched-energon scent that he could still taste from that disastrous crime scene…

He stayed.

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	21. Childhood Friends AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Childhood friends… for some definition of child, I guess.

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Mech number Qt2uEANy-125-d finished his boot up process and his optic band came on. The wires trailing from his wrist detached from the ensparking platform, and more wires coming from the platform detached from the ports on his spine. Qt2uEANy-125-d stumbled and fell to his knees, utterly disoriented. Everything was bright and loud and too much. His fans burred loudly as his processor fought to catch up to his senses.

One of the mechs -- a priest, some corner of Qt2uEANy-125-d’s inherent programming identified the bright blue markings painted on his plating -- stepped forward. Qt2uEANy-125-d flinched from the sensation of the mech’s plating against his, but the priest didn’t hesitate. He half picked Qt2uEANy-125-d up and carried him the rest of the way off the platform. 

“You may recover here,” the mech said, guiding him to the floor. Sounds became data became language became meaning in Qt2uEANy-125-d’s processor, leaving him dizzy. “But we need the platform. There is a schedule to keep.”

Qt2uEANy-125-d stared blankly at him. He understood the words, but still wasn’t sure what, if anything, they were for.

Fortunately the priest did not seem to require a response and left Qt2uEANy-125-d there. Qt2uEANy-125-d watched him return to the platform.

The machine Qt2uEANy-125-d had been hooked too spun, placing another limp, blank mech onto the platform in front of the priests. Qt2uEANy-125-d stared blankly at the blank mech. Very similar to his own specs, with sensor panels on his back. He was grey and Qt2uEANy-125-d looked at his own plating. It was not-grey. It was… the words came slowly. “Black” and “white”. He was black and white and not-grey.

One of the priests did something, and the machine reached for the blank mech, pulling and prying open the grey plating in a way that looked painful and Qt2uEANy-125-d winced, even though the blank mech was not-alive.

The priests started talking. Sounds became data became language became  _ gibberish, _ and Qt2uEANy-125-d shook his head, trying to clear the feel of priests’ voices from his sensor horns. Another part of the machine reached down from the ceiling and thrust its needle-like end into the blank-mech’s pried-open chest. Qt2uEANy-125-d cried out a wordless protest. That  _ really _ looked like it hurt--

Light erupted through the room with a crack of thunder. Qt2uEANy-125-d’s cry turned to a scream of pain as the feed from his optic band whited out and fuzzed to static.

He rebooted.

When he looked back up at the platform, the three arms of the machine were pulling away. The mech’s chest was closed and color was painting itself across his plating. Black and white, just like Qt2uEANy-125-d’s, but also with a little bit of something Qt2uEANy-125-d’s burgeoning language files identified as “red”.

The new mech’s optics flickered on, and the wires all released him from the platform, the ones on his wrist coiling up neatly and an armor plate sliding over to cover them.

_ He _ stepped off of the platform, perfectly composed, Qt2uEANy-125-d noted jealously. He looked around, then his doorwings flicked dismissively at the priests.

“Hello,” he said to Qt2uEANy-125-d, “I am Qt2uEANy-125-e. Are you experiencing difficulties? I would like to help.”

Qt2uEANy-125-d’s vocalizer clicked once, then twice as he was forced to reset it. Finally meaning became data became language became sound, “I’m Qt2uEANy-125-d,” he said. “And I don’t know if I’m experiencing difficulties. How can I tell?”

“Can you stand?”

Could he? “I don’t know.”

“Let me help.” 

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	22. Crime AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know that you know that I know that you know… Jazz and Prowl’s “relationship” in a nutshell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was struggling with an idea for this until Riz reminded me I already have several active crime AU series. I decided on something from my [White Collar Fusion AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/786510) because guess what my housemate was watching on Netflix yesterday. For anyone not familiar with either the show or my TF fusion of it: Prowl is a world-class forger and con artist serving a commuted sentence by helping the Enforcers, and Jazz is his very long suffering parole officer.

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“You better not be doing what it looks like you’re doing.”

Prowl looked up from the sheet of flimsy he was working on and twisted his features into a wide-opticked expression of innocence. It suited his features well, which is probably why people who _really should know better_ often believed him when he did it. “That depends. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks,” Jazz said evenly, refusing to rise to Prowl’s bait, “like you’re forging a book worth over a million shanix. At. My. Kitchen. Table.”

“Oh. That.” Prowl looked over the datapad containing the photos of the book in question and his supplies, spread out on the table in front of him. “You’re house is bigger than that dingy place the enforcers rented for me. I wouldn’t have the space for all of this there.”

Jazz growled.

“Besides,” Prowl went on with a charming smile. “I’m not _forging_ anything. It’s only a forgery if I intend to sell it as the original and obviously,” deft, graceful fingers snatched a small plaque from the pile of completed pieces and showed it to Jazz, “I am not doing that.”

Jazz looked at the plaque. _“Kings of the Harvest” originally written in the 4th century by Nightcast. Replica created by Prowl for display at the Iacon Metropolitan Library._

“This,” Prowl explained smugly, as though Jazz couldn’t figure it out, “is a _legally_ created replica, commissioned by the IML. Apparently they want to display it, but don’t want to expose their precious fourth century manuscript to the unwashed hands of the public. Thus, hiring an expert on the creation of such replicas. They even provided the pictures I needed.” The con artist preened.

It made Jazz want to strangle him.

“And why,” he asked slowly, forced to concede that (unbelievable as it seemed) Prowl was not committing a crime here, “are you teaching my twin how to forge priceless manuscripts?”

Ricochet, who’d until then simply been watching Jazz and Prowl’s conversation like a high stakes game of ping pong, snickered.

“I needed an assistant,” Prowl answered airily.

Jazz turned his glare on his twin, silently demanding an explanation from the mechanism who might actually _give_ him a straight answer.

“I thought it’d fun,” Ricochet drawled back. Silently Jazz started drawing up the paperwork to disown his idiotic twin. He’d never file it, of course, but there were days that looking over the unsigned documents disavowing any responsibility for his twin’s actions was the only thing that kept him from _grabbing him and shaking him until he stopped being such a twit._

“You better not get my brother arrested,” Jazz snarled, turning back to Prowl, who widened his optics again with that false innocent expression.

“Would I do that?”

“In a sparkbeat, you _fragger.”_

Prowl just shrugged, not bothering to deny it.

Jazz calmed himself. There really was no point in getting angry at Prowl. The con artist never showed any reaction to his anger besides smug superiority and false innocence.

And it wasn’t like Jazz was _completely_ unarmed in this particular battle of wits. No one knew Prowl better than he did. “Speaking of your dingy apartment,” Jazz said brightly, deliberately invoking a mood whiplash that would perhaps yank Prowl off-balance, “maybe you should guess what we found during our inspection today.”

“I’m sure you found plenty of things,” Prowl drawled, “seeing as it’s where I keep all my things.”

“Maybe you’d like to tell me what you need ten bottles of alcohol for?”

“It’s an organic solvent,” Prowl responded carefully. “I use it for plenty of things. In fact,” he set the plaque aside to snatch up one of the bottles from his supplies of flimsy and inks he was using for his current project. “I’m using it for this project.”

Jazz ignored that as the red herring it was meant to be. “An organic solvent… most often used for the, hmm, rewriting of checks.” Something he knew Prowl had done in the past: using the alcohol to remove the payment amount, then carefully forging the issuer’s handwriting to fill in whatever amount he wanted. Or change who the check was written to. He couldn’t _prove_ that was what Prowl was using the alcohol for now, but simply insinuating it to the right person could get Prowl thrown right back into prison.

“I would never,” Prowl scoffed.

“Uh huh.” Jazz grinned. “Especially not the check you get for your little commission here.”

“I assure you that I’m being paid enough for this that I’d have no reason to _tamper_ with the paycheck in any way,” Prowl was back to false innocence, placing his hand over his spark in solemn promise. It was a lie, of course. Both Jazz and Prowl knew it was a lie.

But now that he knew Jazz was watching for it, Prowl wouldn’t dare do so.

“Of course,” Jazz said blandly, but let the triumph shine through his gaze. “Clean up when you’re done. I don’t want to try cooking around this mess tomorrow.”

Prowl just pouted. Mech _hated_ being outmaneuvered.

“And if Rico gets in trouble because of you,” Jazz lowered his voice in a more serious threat, “I will string you up by those ridiculous doorwings and throw you off the tallest tower in Iacon.”

“His current boytoy is more likely to get him in trouble than I am,” Prowl scoffed sullenly.

“Hey!” Ricochet bristled his plating in offense, and both Jazz and Prowl turned their disbelieving gazes on him. “Leave Smokescreen out of this.”

After a moment both Jazz and Prowl mutually decided to pretend Ricochet hadn’t said anything.

“Have fun,” Jazz said sweetly, headed up the stairs to get ready. He had places to be.

“Tell your date I said ‘hi’,” Prowl retorted, making Jazz’s steps falter. How had--? “You really should take him to that new Kaonex restaurant on the promenade. He seems like the type who’d appreciate it.”

Jazz turned back to glare at Prowl, who only smiled pleasantly.

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	23. Historical AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cybertron’s Wild West… with robot dinosaur riding cowboys! XD ~~Not as silly as it sounds. Probably.~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … when your housemate offers to take you on a shopping trip you’ve put off for three months because you don’t drive, writing prompts get done a few hours late. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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_ The moon was bright as a reading light… _

Jazz sighed happily. He lounged on his velociraptor-bot’s back, listening to the soft sounds of the sleepy herd of stegasaur-bots shuffling and lowing in the dark. He was supposed to be keeping watch for mountain cybercats and turbowolves and other predators, but it was the rainy season, the razor grass was growing quickly, and there was much easier prey out there for a hungry plains predators than a herd of healthy stegasaurs guarded by dinobot riders. 

And the sky was just so pretty tonight. The edge of the Rust Sea had the best grazing and hands down the  _ best _ stargazing of anyplace on Cybertron. Jazz wouldn’t trade this moment for all the riches in the world.

Unlike a lot of the dinobot riders, who got into this work because they had no place else to go or had no other skills besides roping and riding, Jazz had signed up for the chance to see the Rust Sea in person, to stargaze far from the city lights. He’d seen Wild Blade’s variety show and rodeo, and been captivated by the excitement of it. He’d run away to join a ranch, and never looked back. It was hard, strutbreaking, sometimes dangerous work, but Jazz treasured even the moments of terror, racing on his dinobot along with the herd of stampeding stegasaurs.

His family, back home in ordered, civilized, Iacon still occasionally wrote to him, asking how he was doing and pleading for him to come back and take his place in their business empire. Jazz sent back toys and candies bought from every city on the dinobot riders’ grazing route, and filled his return letters with stories or songs. Once he wrote about the passing of the dinobot riders through a small valley, from the point of view of a turbowolf pup. Another time he transcribed the notes of all the birdsong he woke to in springtime.

The rapid  _ thum-click, thum-click, thum-click _ of a velociraptor’s feet trotting through the razor grass alerted Jazz to the approach of another dinobot rider, and he righted himself in his saddle. He didn’t bother pulling his hat on though. It served its purpose as a wearable sun-shade during the day, but at night Jazz liked to listen to the sounds of the plains on his audial horns without obstruction.

The approaching rider wore his hat even at night. Prowl was not one of the usual dino riders. He was a Marshal, hunting a group of bandits rumored to be raiding this area. Marshals were generally independent folk, for lawmechs, but it was always better to travel through the wilds of Cybertron with a group, if possible. He’d be splitting off when they got closer to the bandits’ probable lair

“Howdy,” Jazz drawled. “Nice night fer a ride.”

“It is,” Prowl said crisply, in his very precise, upper class Praxan intonation. Jazz had probably ridden this or some other circuit with Prowl a dozen times, but he’d never asked how a lawmech operating in the wilds came across an accent like that. Probably the same way a mech from an investment cohort out of Iacon ended up speaking with a dino rider’s drawl. “You do not seem worried about Predacon attacks.”

Jazz chuckled. Predacons. Wildmechs. “Naw. Out on th’grassland like this,” he waved at the razor grass surrounding the herd, stretching to the horizon. “They’re followin’ th’ big herds’a sauroids. We’ll cross paths with ‘em sure enough, but not tonight.”

“Good.”

“Got somethin’ against Preds?” Jazz asked curiously. As far as he was concerned, there was enough space out here for everyone. No reason to go poking any hex-ant hills.

“Not as such,” Prowl said sharply. “But they are trouble, and I dislike trouble.”

Jazz couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Suppose yer right about that. Ain’t gonna be any trouble tonight though.”

Silence fell, and Jazz let it. It  _ was _ a nice night, and he liked the sound of the hexbugs chirping. There was a nice rhythm to it, and a couple different notes. Maybe he should transcribe it for his next letter home...

“I did have a question I came out here to ask.” Prowl asked after a moment of just watching the stegasaurs graze.

“Shoot,” Jazz said, just to watch the lawmech wince.

“Do you ever think about going back? Home?” Prowl guided his velociraptor around to face Jazz and expertly turned the bright green head with the reins to keep the two bots from biting each other. “The others talk about what they will do when they return to the cities. You talk about your home, about the mechs who write you letters, but you never mention returning to them.”

Jazz laughed. “Iacon ain’t home. Don’t think I could call anyplace ya can’t see th’stars like this,” he gestured to the expansive tapestry of lights spread out above them, “home.”

“I see.”

“What about ya?” Jazz asked, because Prowl was the one who’d brought it up. “Ya ever think about goin’ back t’Praxus? Yer accent,” he clarified, when Prowl looked askance at him. “I’ve been t’every city that buys or sells the stegasaurs, an’ yers is pretty distinctive.”

“I suppose it is,” he acknowledged. 

“So?”

Prowl turned his mount away, facing the horizon to watch the moon for a spell. Jazz didn’t pry again. It was impolite to pry too hard about why somone was making their fortunes out in the wilds. 

Finally, “There is nothing left in Praxus for me to return to.”

Well didn’t that make Jazz feel kind of awful for asking. “Well yer a good rider. S’far as I’m concerned, yer welcome t’ride with us anytime.”

“I appreciate it.”

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	24. Workplace/Office AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl hates his job. Actually no, the job is okay, but his coworkers...

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“Why doesn’t Nightlight just fire Flutter?” Prowl didn’t whine. He never whined. Whining was undignified. “I’ll even provide the canon.”

Jazz laughed softly and made room on the couch for his lover. Flutter was Nightlight’s latest replacement for Jazz, and it seemed like Prowl was getting along with her as well as he had the previous two accountants. Downsizing their separate one-bedroom apartments downtown into a single shared studio apartment some distance away from the office had allowed Jazz to quit to pursue music as a full-time career.

That made him feel bad sometimes, since Prowl was still stuck at that office, but Prowl had said over and over again that he didn’t consider it a sacrifice. He’d gone to school to be a programmer, and this was a good job for him, not like Jazz, who’d only taken up accounting because he needed a day job to pay the rent. 

Prowl often joked that he was going to take over the company. Jazz retorted that he’d have to assassinate Nightlight first.

Prowl took advantage of the space offered and flopped over on the couch, landing face down and draped all over Jazz’s lap. “Aaaaargh!”

“What’s the twit done this time?” Jazz set aside the crystal sax in favor of rubbing his lover’s doorwings.

“Sent a dozen invoices to the wrong addresses,” Prowl mumbled, muffled by his face full of lap. Jazz winced. As mistakes went... That was a pretty big one.

“So do you want to spend the night complaining about Flutter, or do you want to forget all about her?” Jazz asked honestly. With Prowl it could go either way. Sometimes the only thing that calmed him down was spending joors and joors venting his frustration. Other times he preferred being…  _ distracted. _ “I don’t have a performance tonight, so I can do either.”

“Distract me?”

Jazz grinned. “With  _ pleasure, _ lover.”

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	25. Friends With Benefits AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are all sorts of benefits of being friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Anon_E_Miss can declare dragons are historical, I can call this a “benefit”. This is part of my [Kite Strings](https://archiveofourown.org/series/417151) series, where Prowl is a dragon and Jazz _was_ a squire for the Knights of Primus. Oh, and he likes kites, _juuuuust_ a little.

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“I know what you’re going to say,” Jazz said, decisively, “and the answer is still  _ I am not just going to keep drinking the energon of your prey.” _

Prowl’s optic was bigger than Jazz’s head. Staring balefully at a mech really was intimidating -- or so he’d been told. Jazz was immune to any and all intimidation. It was one of the things Prowl liked about him. “I was not going to say anything. In fact at no point did I suggest you should not go into town.” Prowl gave up on intimidation and starting cleaning his claws with long swipes of his tongue over the scales and sharp metal weapons. “I merely,” he pointed out reasonably when he was sure he could do so without grabbing Jazz and flying off with him in a jealous fit, “pointed out it was a possibility.”

“It’s a possibility I’m gonna keep for emergencies only. We got plenty of shanix from helping that pirate crew with that thing they told us never to mention again. I’m gonna go into town and use some of it to buy energon.” He wrapped the acid-resistant tarp around himself in the style of the Rust Sea prospectors; this village was close enough that they might not ask too many questions about what a lone traveller was doing buying supplies if that lone traveller at least looked like a prospector. Or so Jazz said. He cut a handsome figure, or so Prowl thought. He didn’t have a lot of experience with mechs, but Jazz was a distinctly attractive one in his opinion. Definitely better than Starscream, and shinier than those two others. Anyone would be lucky to have his attention...

“Alright,” Prowl pretended he didn’t care what Jazz did by chasing an itch down his spinal spikes and licking them clean. Jazz was a wild, untamed, completely and utterly  _ free _ creature. That’s why Prowl was here, instead of the moon. He wanted to be with Jazz, but he couldn’t keep the mech like one of his cybertriops or he’d wilt and die. 

That meant he was  _ allowed _ out of Prowl’s sight. 

It  _ really _ meant no grabbing him and flying off with him and putting him on a pedestal of carved rock in a cave somewhere and spending orns and orns doing nothing but admiring him… .

“Hey,” Jazz said kindly, “No worries.” He touched Prowl’s foreclaw fearlessly. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I’m not worried,” Prowl said quickly with a quickly suppressed fluff of his scale armor. He twisted his neck to look down his snout at Jazz. “You can take care of yourself.”

“S’not what I think you’re worried about, Prowl,” Jazz said, looking up. “I  _ am _ coming back.”

“I know.” To think otherwise was ridiculous. He and Jazz traveled together because they  _ wanted _ to; he wasn’t going to  _ escape. _

(One of Bluestreak’s cybercats had escaped once. Smokescreen had told them that was the most essential lesson they needed to learn if they intended to keep hoards made from living creatures -- some creatures just couldn’t be kept; it wasn’t in their natures. They would always escape and there just wasn’t anything any dragon could do about it. Bluestreak had still be heartbroken. Prowl had  _ thought _ he’d escaped that particular form of sparkbreak by focusing on the cybertriops who couldn’t leave their acid pools…)

“Right,” Jazz said. “Just sit tight and I’ll be back as soon as I’ve got supplies.”

“Just come back soon.”

“Will.” With that, Jazz flipped his skimmer into the oil-lake they were camped next to. The engine sputtered on and with a  _ whoop! _ he shot out across the bay toward the village. Prowl watched him maneuver effortlessly around the occasional puddle of acid that had formed on the surface of the oil. Jazz caught a breeze in the skimmer’s sail and did a spin-flip with another shout of excitement. Droplets of oil thrown up by his passing caught the sun’s light, sparkling like gems.

Prowl watched him until he was out of sight.

Still watching the horizon where he’d disappeared a joor later, Prowl finally convinced himself that he couldn’t  _ really _ still see the sail on the horizon.

Nothing to do except go back to the camp -- such as it was, with both the skimmer and the tarp gone with Jazz -- and wait for Jazz to come back. He thought about hunting, but he wasn’t  _ really _ hungry, and the thought of bringing a kill -- a suitably impressive kill, as befit a truly impressive dragon! -- back to an empty camp made Prowl’s tank curdle. He wanted Jazz to be back so they could hunt elsewhere.

“The dragon went this way!” Prowl’s audios pricked up. Dragon? No one was supposed to know he was here. Well maybe they were looking for another dragon. Prowl wasn’t the only dragon who came down to the ground to hunt. He was just the only one he knew of who didn’t fly back to the moon to lair. It was probably nothing he needed to worry about.

The black and white dragon rolled over to go to sleep, but was interrupted by a mech bursting into the camp  brandishing his weapon. 

“Here,” yelled the mech, a larger specimen of his kind. Green, with helicopter blades like Blades had. He did not look friendly at all. “We finally meet, dragon.” The mech said, this time clearly to Prowl. “What did you do with Hot Rod?”

Prowl had just enough time to say, “Huh?” before four more mechs burst into the sandy clearing, all bearing weapons. Prowl wasn’t worried about that. Mech weapons were very formidable, it was true, but very few could cut through dragon armor. Only the blessed weapons of the Knights of Primus could do so easily. Still, five hostile mechs was much different than one. Blades had managed to put holes in Scrapper’s wings and Prowl did not like the thought of the same happening to him. Instead of rolling over again to try to sleep, he stood up.

_ That _ intimidated the mechs and Prowl was pleased that Jazz had been right about that.

“I’m sorry,” said firmly, “but you must be looking for someone else. I don’t do that.” Because Prowl knew that some dragons made a habit of kidnapping mechs to eat. 

“Don’t  _ lie, _ monster! You’ll cough him up one way or another. Wreckers --  _ attack!” _

Alarmed, Prowl reared up on his hind legs and fanned his wings to keep the helicopter away from him. He engaged his anti-gravs and took off, hovering just like Jazz had taught him. 

_ Rattatatatatat! _

Prowl roared at the sting of guns along his rump and whirled. A second helicopter -- a yellow and orange one -- had snuck around behind him. 

_ Crack-throom! _ A larger shot from the green helicopter exploded against Prowl. The dragon screeched. Blindly he swung around to face him and let loose a blast of acidic spray. Most of it missed, but the mechs still on the ground, shooting up were forced to scatter to avoid it. 

Desperately he climbed, pumping his wings to pull his weightless bulk through the air. Some mechs had thrusters that let them maneuver outside the atmosphere, and shielding that let them withstand the heat escaping the planet’s gravity required, but chances were that if Prowl could get high enough for the air to thin, the helicopters would be unable to follow him.

_ Ka-blam! Ka-blam! _ Prowl flinched away in his flight before he recognized the sound of Jazz’s scattershot blaster.

“Prowl!” 

Automatically, Prowl swung his tail toward the call, and was relieved to feel the teeth of the grappling hook catch the puff of wires there. He flipped himself in the air, dragging the weight of the battlekite along behind him, until Jazz released himself, tumbling through the air.

Prowl saw him twist in the second helicopter’s unpredictable wake, flipping end over end, and catching himself with his grappling hook on the mech’s landing gear. The helicopter skidded sideways in the air, but Jazz hung tight.

_ Ka-blam! _ The helicopter’s stabilizing tailblade went spinning off into the distance and the mech trailed smoke as he fell. Jazz threw himself clear, flipping the kite beneath himself. Prowl dived to catch him in his claws while the first helicopter went after his companion. 

Prowl let himself float like a kite, balanced between his anti-gravs and the wind with still wings while Jazz climbed his scales until he was situated on the dragon’s neck, just behind his head, clinging to the sweeping red horns there. Then Prowl flapped again, intended to fly away from the campsite and the irrational mechs below.

“What happened?” Jazz asked breathlessly. 

“I do not know,” Prowl answered. “They were looking for someone, I believe.”

“Someone taken by a dragon?” He felt Jazz lean over to look down at the ground. “We can’t have them thinking you did it.”

Prowl huffed. He did not care what they thought!

“Fine,” Jazz said with a chuckle.  _ “I _ can’t have them thinking you did it. It’d be all sorts of inconvenient for us, and their mech’ll get eaten if they keep chasing you.”

“You want to go down and talk to them?”

“I want to go down and talk to them.”

Prowl let out a growling chitter of frustration, but Jazz was fully capable of jumping and getting to the ground on his battlekite and Prowl did not want to lose him, so he turned back, circling their campsite.

“There,” Prowl could not see Jazz point, but the mech clarified, “closer to the sand. That’s where I left the skimmer.”

Prowl saw it and spilled the air from his wings and carefully lessened the power of his antigravs so that he would land there. The craft was intact, laden with packs and bags that must contain the supplies Jazz had gone to get.

Jazz hopped off as soon as Prowl’s claws touched the sand. He kept the battlekite out and ready, and the grappling hook primed, and Prowl nodded in satisfaction. If the irrational mechs did not listen, they could fight their way free again. He reached over and deftly subspaced the skimmer and the supplies. 

“Wait,” Jazz dug into the pack in Prowl’s claws. “I was hoping to give this to you under more peaceful circumstances, but…” he held up the bright blue speck of stone, almost too small for Prowl to see clearly, but he leaned in close and  _ purrled _ in pleasure. It was a cybertriops. A pendant on a chain, too small to do more than hang from one of his horns. Which is where Jazz hopped up on his neck to hang it. “Since you left your hoard behind to be with me.”

“I will treasure it,” Prowl responded, touched by the gift. Then swung his head to look back toward their camp. He could hear the mechs coming. “I will admire it more later.”

“Yeah.” Jazz turned to look too. “Later. Maybe we’ll go visit Bluestreak when we’re done rescuing whoever these guys are looking for. You can show it off to him. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

Prowl honked in surprise, and no little protest.  _ “Rescue!?!?” _

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	26. Sex Worker AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz is aromantic (but doesn’t realize it) and doesn’t understand the difference between romance and friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the same ‘verse as [some](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8719240/chapters/19990531) [other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27172569) [one -shots](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27218244) [I’ve](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27241263) [done](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968479/chapters/27311436) in previous daily one-shot challenges. It fits because Jazz _is_ a prostitute (among other things), even if he’s not acting like it in this… I tried. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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Jazz eyed the couch warily. It was new, and that made him suspicious. There was no reason, he knew, for that to make him suspicious. People -- people with apartments and furniture and all the normal trappings the money a regular job brought in -- replaced furniture all the time, and Jazz could personally attest to just how hard and lumpy Prowl’s old one was. This one looked like a vast improvement, soft, plush, and possessing an overabundance of padding. But Prowl was frugal, a saver, and had been operating on even more of a tight budget since Jazz had started freeloading. Contrary to what his previous romantic partners had yelled at him as they kicked him permanently out of their lives, Jazz  _ did _ understand that a roommate was supposed to contribute to shared finances. It was why he tried not to stay with Prowl unless he had no place other to go. Jazz just  _ didn’t _ have the money to help with rent or food or with buying new couches most of the time, and when he did, he knew better than to get a police officer to accept stolen cash.

He really needed to repay Prowl  _ somehow. _ Even those tourists he convinced to take him home for the night got a nice frag out of it. Jazz liked to frag, he  _ loved _ his nighttime partners, but Prowl had never hinted that that was something he wanted.

Maybe Prowl was replacing Jazz? Something in his spark twisted up at the thought, even though he had no one to blame but himself if he was. He’d been the one to introduce Prowl to Bluestreak and encourage the two officers to go out. Do romantic things. Jazz had never minded sharing, but now he wondered if Prowl did. Did the new couch mean Bluestreak was moving in?

Maybe Prowl was mad because Jazz didn’t do romance things? He’d never  _ asked _ Jazz to do romantic things, not like Smokescreen or Mirage… But then, while Mirage had made it clear what he expected in the way of romantic gestures (lots, and lavish) right from the beginning -- which probably went a long way towards explaining why he was the  _ only _ mech Jazz had broken up with amicably -- Smokescreen hadn’t mentioned anything about expecting candlelight dinners or long walks in the park until he was throwing Jazz’s stuff on the sidewalk.

Jazz had learned from that experience, at least. He didn’t own much, but he kept it packed up tight when he was staying at Prowl’s, and he took it with him when he left. It’d taken him  _ months _ to repair his violino after its close encounter with the pavement! He did leave the little bottles of soap and polish he swiped from various hotels in Prowl’s washracks. Leaving cosmetics in your beau’s apartment was supposed to signify permanence, according to one dating advice book he’d read, and if Jazz ever came back to find Prowl had tossed them, well, they’d been free to start with.

Prowl had never tossed them. That Jazz knew of, at least. Suddenly unsure, he left his oilcake batter on the counter and _didn’t_ _run_ to the washracks to check.

No, there they were. Lined up in a row with military precision next to Prowl’s own soap -- a cheaper brand than Jazz remembered the first time he’d stayed the night, more evidence of just how much of a financial strain supporting Jazz was on Prowl -- and the department mandated polish. And there was a new soap, one Jazz didn’t recognize, standing tall in the line up. He picked it up and looked at it.

_ Property of Bluestreak. That means “Don’t Touch” Jazz, _ was printed neatly in Prowl’s handwriting on the side.

Part of Jazz wanted to draw a bath right now and use the bottle, just to be contrary and see if they’d even notice the theft. Most of him wasn’t sure what to think. Jazz  _ didn’t _ mind sharing, but this had never happened before, that someone else had moved into his and his partner’s space without first getting rid of Jazz.

He drummed his fingers against the bottle, thinking. He probably should just leave and not come back. That’d hurt less than being kicked out again, right?

Jazz didn’t  _ want _ to leave, to give up Prowl. Prowl was the best partner he’d ever had, and he wasn’t kidding around when he called Prowl his soulmate. 

That left showing Prowl Jazz could be a good partner, even if he couldn’t pay his way. Which meant actually starting to do all those romantic things he hadn’t realized he needed. As long as Prowl understood he didn’t mind sharing with Bluestreak! Not at all, just… Seeing Prowl’s computer, on the desk he kept instead of a dining room table, Jazz sat down to use the datanet browser to look up a few things. 

_ Top Ten Ways to Surprise Your Soulmate And Show You Appreciate Him! _ Perfect. Jazz clicked it and started reading.

It didn’t seem too hard, honestly. Expendy, but Jazz could improvise. He should start by finishing that cake, and he could definitely decorate it this time. And last cycle’s lover had been staying in a super nice place. He’d swiped a couple bottles from the minibar and he thought he saw a thing of bubble bath in his new haul of cosmetics, so drinks and a bath massage were covered. Crystal flowers. Jazz wracked his processor for where he’d seen blooms free for the picking recently. He could run out and get some while the cake was baking. Interfacing… well maybe Prowl was waiting for Jazz to offer? He was a gentlemech...

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	27. Internet AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The internet according to an introvert.

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Prowl did not keep a YouView account so he could watch gaming, or music, small mechanimals, or any of the other thousand things the algorithm assumed he did, simply because he was one of millions of viewers, and there were far more trend followers than outliers. Prowl was content being an outlier in internet traffic. He watched primarily cooking shows, or used it to look up gardening information. His home was his entire life outside of work, and enjoyed making it the very best home he could possibly make it. That involved a lot of cooking and cleaning and looking after the stray cybercat that only lived there only occasionally.

Right after he had  _ not adopted _ the cat, hexbugs -- harmless but annoying -- had started coming in through the open window. Nothing Prowl did got rid of them permanently, though the cybercat did catch and eat some of them. He’d searched YouView far and wide for a solution that wouldn’t degrade the quality of his home. He had the most luck with placing sticky traps with bait down on the counters where the hexbugs rested. That did get rid of the current crop of bugs, but did not stop them from continually coming in through the window unless he left them out. And with his counters covered in sticky bug traps, he could not use them to cook.

Eventually he found a video on the pleasures of growing drosera crystals, and had tentatively engaged the poster, describing his problem and how he thought the carnivorous flora would help. The poster had been happy to help and a few cycles later Prowl had been the proud owner of a self-baited, self-cleaning hexbug trap that he could leave on the windowsill of the kitchen, rather than right on the counters where it would be in his way. The video’s poster had pestered him until he posted a short video of his new drosera crystal catching a few of the hexbugs.

He found pleasure in growing crystals after that, and added a collection of them to his home (hence using YouView to look up gardening information). He hadn’t quite intended to, but somehow Prowl had also continued filming and posting short videos of each crystal in his growing collection, and sometimes of the cybercat interacting with the tiny self contained gardens.

His following was small -- miniscule, compared to those who posted content specifically to attract viewers. Small enough that Prowl saw no reason not to engage with each person who commented on one of his very humble videos. Often they were mechs who were appreciative of the crystals, inquiring about their types, where to buy them, or how to care for one themselves. Prowl answered their questions as best he could, and directed them to much larger and much more knowledgeable mechs who posted videos about their care.

He rarely felt the need to follow someone’s channel when they decided to follow his. Mostly the small, short, obviously amateur videos only attracted followers who in turn did not have any videos of their own and that was fine. So when he clicked on improv_jazz-3349’s link, he expected more of the same.

He was wrong. Improv_jazz was a voracious poster, focusing primarily on tutorial videos for how to play the violino and bandore. There were a few performance songs. Prowl was hardly a sophisticated music connoisseur, but he liked the melodies just fine. Improv_jazz even had a short series of instructional videos on how to make one’s own bandore; the only parts that needed to bought from a music store, according to him, were the strings -- the cheapest part of the instrument.

Thinking primarily of the blank space on the wall one of his coworkers had called a “scary” expanse of white, and that the finished product would make a nice art piece, Prowl favorited the playlist and began gathering materials.

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	28. Gym AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl needs a personal trainer.

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Prowl felt silly walking around the patio tables for the “all natural” energon bakery that took up the front of the building. Even at this early hour, there were a couple of mechs lounging with their morning energon blends, chatting over the “healthy for you AND the environment!” treats. They looked up as he passed; he saw them tense, and he had to physically stop himself for doing an impromptu shakedown for crystal pesht or other illegal intoxicants. He wasn’t here for that, and that if he burned this place as an option he might as well resign himself to being an office drone for the rest of his career, or transfer over to forensics, and instead of returning to his patrols. Give up on being a detective entirely.

According to his insurance, his physical therapy was over and they would not be paying for any more of it. According to the department, he wasn’t going to be able to return to the streets until he regained full mobility. His doors tried to flare at the thought, but only one moved easily, and while he could manage not to limp when he walked, he could not yet run or transform. Which left Prowl with very few options.

So he entered the almost hidden side door that led him down a long hall to the back half of the building, relieved that the place seemed to be open. It’s directory site said it was, but there were quite a few shops in this part of town that opened and closed more according to their owners whims than on any sort of schedule, no matter what their directory sites said.

Inside, the space was bright and clean, with, Prowl was relieved to note, only a slight whiff of incense.

“Good morning officer,” the proprietor said cheerfully. He was a lithe, graceful individual, with a racer’s frame and an optic band sparkling with mischief. “We’re not actually affiliated with the bakery out front, just so you know.”

“I’m not here for that,” Prowl said, making a note to drop the hint into Vice’s inbox, for when a couple of their officers had the time to make such a low-priority bust as this. “Your directory site says you offer after-injury physical therapy, at the same price as your regular private classes?” His spark constricted in hope and fear. If he was wrong about this…

“As long as you’ve been through at least one round of therapy under a medic’s care,” the mech’s tone turned brisk and businesslike, as though he hadn’t just given Prowl everything he needed on a silver platter. As though he weren’t saving Prowl’s career and life with just that simple statement. “You get a twenty percent discount if you happen to have brought a referral from your therapist.”

When his insurance had cut off the payments for his regular therapist, the mech had raged against the system and had been the one to tell him about this place. “I did.”

“Well then, let’s get you signed up. You want your first session to be today?”

This was going to work. Prowl was going to get his life back. “Please.”

“Alright then.” The mech smiled. “I’m Jazz, and I’ll be your instructor. Welcome to your yuj samādhau journey to enlightenment.”

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	29. Time Travel AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are Prowl, on the morning of battle. (2nd person pov)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: canon-typical violence

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You have to pick a spot before you initiate the loop. You know that from experience. The first time -- the first few times -- you initiated the loop upon waking, which led to you bolting awake when you reached the end of each sub-optimal outcome, screaming and retching as though from a particularly bad nightmare. Not too far from the truth, really, but it always delays your ability to do anything at all in the morning. Sometimes if your reaction to the previous cycle’s events had been particularly bad, you would find yourself confined to medical, unable to do anything at all to affect events as they played out.

Those early mistakes had shown you the value of going one loop entirely without interfering, just to see how events played out without you trying to affect them, but still… spending an entire loop -- or ten, or sixty -- in medical. Sub-optimal outcome.

(It still happens sometimes, when the Decepticons launch a surprise attack and you’re bolted from recharge by emergency alarms, initiating the loop before you’re fully awake. Nothing for it then, and those loops become nothing but cycles and cycles of nightmarish nonstop fighting, going from the end of one sub-optimal outcome right back to bolting awake, already under attack.)

So despite Ratchet’s protests about your sleep habits, and how important recharge and defrag are to healthy functioning and a sharp mind and aren’t those what you _need most_ when there’s an attack scheduled, you stay up the whole night, drinking in the for-now peace of the stars. You’ve learned not to initiate the loop already inside the tactical suite. That is often where you can do the most good with your ability, but not always. Sometimes optimal outcomes require your personal participation, but once you enter the tactical suite, you cannot leave it, which forces you to either be _creative_ in getting out to the battlefield -- courting a court martial in the process -- or accept an outcome that would have been better for your personal participation, despite it not being quite optimal.

So instead you’re here, gazing up at the stars. You have already picked your moment. This one, this moment of peace before battle, drinking in the anticipation and the quiet.

 _Loop Initiated._ The words flash across your HUD. You will remember this. From now until you disengage what others call your _tactical suite_ these will be the words that have defined your existence. When you’re blown apart, shot through the spark, captured and interrogated, or simply lose too many of your friends’ sparks to count, you will come back to this moment. You will repeat the cycle until you’ve stumbled your way to your optimal outcome.

Memory of initiating the loop properly constructed, you turn away from the stars and make your way down into hastily constructed tactical bunker. This loop, the first one, will be the hardest.

You do not greet Jazz as you pass him at the door. He is ready for you with his cocky smirk and swagger, and usually you engage with him a bit. Teasing. Testing. Drawing strength from his friendship and his confidence. The loops wear on you, and _this moment,_ the one with Jazz, perched on the precipice between peace and chaos -- like Jazz himself -- is a bright spot that will draw you out down here for each loop, instead of giving up and going back to bed for a loop or thirty.

But it is a variable, and this cycle is about weighing the variables. Moreover, you do not deserve that brightness when you have already made the decision that he will die.

You slip quietly into the tactical center. You are not alone here. There are others -- tacticians, commanders, analysts -- all tasked with evaluating and directing the flow of battle. Your presence is noticed, of course it is, you are the chessmaster. It is your job to take this chaos and direct them to the end of it. You do not return their regard; you just watch.

The plan is good. The intelligence you have on Decepticon defenses at this battle site is good, but incomplete as always. And no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

It hurts. It hurts so much to stand there and watch it all fall apart. You take it all in, the unexpected Decepticon warp cannons, the unanticipated number of troops… Devestator. Optics look at you in recrimination. They want to know why you are silent, why you do not do anything about each new obstacle as disasters spiral together into a complete route. They want you to pull victory from ashes as you have so many times before, and they are accusing of your silence. This is not like you -- of course it isn’t. They only remember the final loop, the one where you have gone through every iteration and decided on the best course of action. In those you have orders, commands, _miracles_ aplenty. Right now you have nothing. You are gathering information.

You are not surprised when the Decepticons overrun the base. They cut through the bunker door, and you look your killer in the optic as he pulls the trigger. You do not know him, but you will, you suspect, before this is over, and you do not try to resist.

Darkness. Then…

Your optics blink open. You are standing under the stars, looking up. The words _Loop Initiated_ still blink on your HUD.

You turn away. You are already laying plans.

“Hey Prowler,” Jazz says as you pass him again. “Ready fer a miracle?”

“No,” you answer honestly, basking in his brightness, in the _possibilities_ that came from standing on the precipice between peace and chaos. “But we’re getting closer.”

Jazz stops. He visibly doesn’t know what to do with that statement. But then he shugs and smiles. “You’ll find it. You always do.”

“Yes,” you say. “I will.” Not this loop. Perhaps not for a thousand. But you will.

You exchange smiles. He saunters on his way, ready to play his part, and you enter the darkened tactical hub, ready to play yours. Maybe you should look up that Decepticon who killed you while you have a klik? Because you know you’ll be seeing him again...

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	30. Roommate AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short continuation of the College AU. Didn’t manage to get them to be roommates, but they’re definitely headed that direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: mentions of prostitution-like behavior and rape.

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Prowl was… Prowl was great, as a friend. At first Jazz had hesitated to use the meal plan chip, thinking for sure that the mech would report it stolen and the instant he revealed himself as the “thief” by trying to use it, he’d be arrested. Meal plans were not the cheapest thing ever; an entire semester would easily push the charge above the fifty shanix maximum for “petty” theft and result in a prison sentence…

But as the snacks he’d stolen from the party ran low -- even though Jazz rationed them -- he was faced with the option of returning to the party circuit to filch more, or trusting Prowl’s good intentions. The parties had their own pitfalls and dangers. He’d have to frag at least one, probably three or four, of the partygoers, and while that wasn’t so bad, the possibility of being drugged again -- drugged and  _ used _ this time -- was viscerally terrifying.

He risked the chip.

He was tense as the attendant scanned it, but it was returned to him with a false-cheerful “here you go” and Jazz was allowed into the bright, clean cafeteria. The din was… it wasn’t  _ deafening, _ the students were all being too quiet for that, but it skittered along Jazz’s audial horns oddly.

The traffic flow seemed to be coming and going from a side room, so Jazz went that way, trying not to reveal how lost he was. A useless effort when he saw the… the… dishes of fuel, set out. Students were just taking them, loading them up on trays, there didn’t seem to be anyone assigned to watching and making sure no one took more than their share.

“I’m glad you came,” a familiar voice said off to one side and Jazz  _ didn’t jump _ in surprise. “You look lost though,” Prowl continued. 

“How does…?” Jazz waved at the counters and plates and dishes. 

“Ah.” The mech swept his gaze over the chaos. “You take a tray and then go to the stations and take a plate or cube of your choice.”

“As many as you want?”

“Yes.” Prowl’s doors canted thoughtfully. “That is probably why meal plans are so expensive. Though for every mech who takes enough magnesium chips to last through finals week, there’s four more who can’t down more than half a cube of standard grade because of the stress.” Doors shrugged. “Some friends and I have a table already, if you would like to join us.”

Jazz’s visor narrowed. “Join” them, huh? Maybe suck their spikes in exchange for Prowl’s “gift”. “Yeah? And do what?”

“Eat,” Prowl said firmly. “And study. We’re between classes. There isn’t time for anything else.” He stepped away, to retrieve his own tray, unconcerned if Jazz followed him or not.

Jazz didn’t follow, not until he saw Prowl had moved on to filling it. Yeah, right. He wasn’t sitting with Prowl or his friends! Maybe they’ll report the chip stolen, but Jazz wasn’t going to be  _ blackmailed _ into anything!

But maybe if he didn’t, and the chip continued to work, he might. Later.

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	31. Dealer's Choice (Barbarian AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Swimming lessons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in Riz and my shared Barbarian/Noble/Fantasy/Genderswap AU ‘verse, the [Chase The Sky Into The Ocean](https://archiveofourown.org/series/968571) series, which includes two longer-than-novel-length stories and a short series of oneshots that are linked at the end of the first story. This one takes place after the end of the second story, returning to HIghtower once they’re married, but before they take off for the Polyhexian Isles.
> 
> Warning: mentions of past kidnapping-as-courtship and genderswap with femme!Jazz and femme!Prowl.

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Prowl eyed the surface of the water cautiously. It glinted back almost malevolently. Since Jazz had first kidnapped her, she’d improved her swimming -- she thought -- considerably. Jazz however did not agree.

“Y’can pull yerself through th’water okay,” the barbarian conceded. “Ain’t graceful, but yer still a newling there so it’s fine. But we’re gonna be sailing back at th’tail end’a th’ _storm season._ Gotta work on yer endurance before we set sail.”

“I ain’t arguin’ that,” Prowl said irritably in Polyhexian. Still she didn’t jump into the rust laden water. She couldn’t even _see_ the bottom!

“Scaredy cat,” Lady Sundance of Greenfields -- Prowl’s familiar and spirit guide -- meowed, perched on the edge of the boat, primly licking her paws. As if _she’d_ willing get into the wet!

Prowl sighed.

Jazz looked between the Praxian femme and the white-spotted shipcat, what Polyhexians called domestic cybercats. She couldn’t understand a single meow the cat made, of course, but she could tell when Sundance and Prowl were conversing, even when Prowl didn’t meow back. Apparently spirit guides that worked similarly to familiars were common enough in the Islands that Jazz had more than enough practice at telling when a mechanimal was just making noise, and when it was talking to its person. It felt weird not to have to be discreet about conversing with her familiar in public, as she had to in court, but Jazz got worried if Prowl went too long without talking to Sundance.

So since there was no reason not to, Prowl meowed back, “I’m not scared.”

“Are too.”

That was an argument Prowl refused to let herself get drawn into for its inevitable _sheer childishness,_ and she sighed again.

Sundance snickered at having “won”... snickers that turned to a sharp yowl of protest when Jazz picked her up by the scruff armor and gently tossed her off the kattumaram.

“Sundance!”

Prowl went into the water after her cat. Behind her, Jazz followed.

Jazz hadn’t thrown her very far, and Prowl reached her almost immediately, even swimming clumsily as she was. “Weeeet,” Sundance yowled, climbing Prowl’s shoulders and head without hesitation once she breached the surface. “Meanie!”

“I hope you know your name is mud,” she said conversationally to Jazz as she glided over to the two struggling swimmers.

Somehow Jazz shrugged in the water. “She’s a better swimmer’n y’are.” She showed off her slightly pointed teeth in a grin. “Just gotta keep yer head above water fer a while.” She swam effortlessly around Prowl, looking at her. “Yer gorgeous. Spread yer doors though, an’ tilt ‘em so they’re flat on th’water. Ain’t tryin’ t’go anywhere. Let ‘em help ya float, instead’a workin’ ‘em.”

Ignoring Sundance’s grumbles about not being able to go back to the kattumaram yet, Prowl obeyed. Immediately she felt the strain in the doors themselves increase, as the water pressure pushed at the connections, but staying afloat was considerably easier.

“Good, beautiful,” Jazz praised. “Kick slower an’ work yer arms in sync. Use ‘em together. Tire slower that way.”

Prowl tried that, and sank down into the water and sped back up in a panic.

It took a few tries to find the right rhythm. It left her floating much lower in the water than she’d like, but her head was above the surface and she supposed that was what mattered. She was already starting to tire, though, and Jazz was still practically flying effortlessly through the water. How long did she have to keep this up.

Long enough that when Jazz gave said they could return to the kattumaram, Prowl’s limbs all felt wrung out like limp dishrags. She collapsed into an exhausted heap onto the deck. Sundance bolted across the slats and up the tiny ship’s mast, complaining the whole way about the wet and treacherous fishing cats with no respect for obviously superior creatures such as herself! Jazz ignored her.

Making a soothing co-ruu sound the Polyhexian femme, gently put her hands on Prowl and started kneaded away the aches. Carefully she stretched each of Prowl’s tensile cables, kneading them so they’d stretch just a _little_ further than they should, then gently guided the release so that Prowl hissed in relief.

When Prowl was limp as much from being stretched out and relaxed as from exhaustion, Jazz crawled up and laid herself down next to and partially on top of the Praxan femme, offering her warmth. Which Prowl took gratefully.

They were wet, but this wasn’t so bad.

“So am I ready t’brave th’storms?” Prowl asked sleepily.

Jazz laughed softly and licked beads of water from her lover’s armor. “Ain’t.” She licked a particular spot that made Prowl groan in desire, frame heating up further in interest. "But gettin' there."

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /flop


End file.
